44:17 All this has happened to us, even though we have not rejected you
or violated your covenant with us.
44:18 We have not been unfaithful,
nor have we disobeyed your commands.
44:19 Yet you have battered us, leaving us a heap of ruins overrun by wild dogs;
you have covered us with darkness.
44:20 If we had rejected our God,
and spread out our hands in prayer to another god,