“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
All righteousness is like filthy rags, all who wither like leaves, and iniquity carries them away like wind—a radical negation of human moral achievement. The image of righteousness as filthy rags suggests that even the best human effort is fundamentally corrupt. The withering leaf imagery indicates human fragility and transience. The wind carrying away indicates helplessness before larger forces. This verse articulates radical dependence: human works cannot achieve righteousness; only YHWH's action can. The rhetorical absoluteness establishes the necessity of divine grace.
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