Isaiah 48

¹Hear this, O house of Jacob,

who are called by the name of Israel,

and who came forth from the loins of Judah;

who swear by the name of the Lord,

and confess the God of Israel,

but not in truth or right.

²For they call themselves after the holy city,

and stay themselves on the God of Israel;

the Lord of hosts is his name.

³“The former things I declared of old,

they went forth from my mouth and I made them known;

then suddenly I did them and they came to pass.

⁴Because I know that you are obstinate,

and your neck is an iron sinew

and your forehead brass,

⁵I declared them to you from of old,

before they came to pass I announced them to you,

lest you should say, ‘My idol did them,

my graven image and my molten image commanded them.’

⁶“You have heard; now see all this;

and will you not declare it?

From this time forth I make you hear new things,

hidden things which you have not known.

⁷They are created now, not long ago;

before today you have never heard of them,

lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’

⁸You have never heard, you have never known,

from of old your ear has not been opened.

For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,

and that from birth you were called a rebel.

⁹“For my name’s sake I defer my anger,

for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,

that I may not cut you off.

¹⁰Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver;

I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.

¹¹For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,

for how should my name be profaned?

My glory I will not give to another.

¹²“Hearken to me, O Jacob,

and Israel, whom I called!

I am He, I am the first,

and I am the last.

¹³My hand laid the foundation of the earth,

and my right hand spread out the heavens;

when I call to them,

they stand forth together.

¹⁴“Assemble, all of you, and hear!

who among them has declared these things?

The Lord loves him;

he shall perform his purpose on Babylon,

and his arm shall be against the Chaldeʹans.

¹⁵I, even I, have spoken and called him,

I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

¹⁶Draw near to me, hear this:

from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,

from the time it came to be I have been there.”

And now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit.

¹⁷Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you to profit,

who leads you in the way you should go.

¹⁸O that you had hearkened to my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river,

and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;

¹⁹your offspring would have been like the sand,

and your descendants like its grains;

their name would never be cut off

or destroyed from before me.”

²⁰Go forth from Babylon, flee from Chaldeʹa,

declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it,

send it forth to the end of the earth;

say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

²¹They thirsted not when he led them through the deserts;

he made water flow for them from the rock;

he cleft the rock and the water gushed out.

²²“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”