Isaiah
48 Listen to this, house of Jacob, you who are called by Israel’s name and have come of Judah’s germs, you who swear by Jehovah’s name and cite the God of Israel,—not in good faith and not with honest intent,— 2 because you are called after the holy city and prop yourselves upon the God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah of Armies. 3 The prior events I announced in the past, they came out of my mouth and I let them be heard of; suddenly I did them and they came true; 4* because I knew that you were a stiff one, and your neck was strap-iron and your forehead solid bronze, 5 I told you in the past, let you hear before it came about, for fear you should think “my idol did the things” or “my statue, my metal image, gave the order for them.” 6 You hear? look at it all! And you yourselves, will you not tell? I am letting you hear of new things from now on, and recondite things that you did not know. 7 They are created now and not in the past, and before the right day you did not any of you hear, for fear you should say “There, I knew about them.”
8 You have neither heard nor known, nor has your ear been opened in the past, because I knew you would be breaking faith, and you had been called a rebel since you came out of your mother’s body. 9* On account of my reputation I will be patient and bridle my resentment toward you, not stamping you out. 10* Here I have been smelting you, but not for silver; I have been testing you in the furnace of hardship. 11* On my own account, my own, I will act, because I am being profaned and I will not give my glory to another.
12* Listen to me, Jacob, and Israel whom I have called: I am the one; I am first, I am last too. 13* It was my hand, too, that laid the foundations of earth, and my right hand that spread the sky; I call to them, they stand there together.
14*** Let them all gather and have us hear who among them has announced these things! He whom I love shall do my pleasure at Babylon, his arm among the Chaldeans. 15* I, I spoke, I called him too, I brought him, and he shall be successful in his enterprises. 16 Come near to me, listen to this: I did not from the first speak in private; ever since it was, there was I.
17 And now the Lord Jehovah has sent me, and his spirit. Says Jehovah your Friend in need, the Holy One of Israel: I am your God Jehovah, he who teaches you to make good, who sets you on the road you should go by. 18 If you had listened to my commandments, then your prosperity would have been like the River and your record of rightness like the waves of the sea; 19 and your issue would have been like the sand and the offspring of your body like the grains of it; their name would never become extinct nor be stamped out from before me.
20 Come out of Babylon! get away from the Chaldeans! Tell this with sounding cheers, make all hear it, publish it to the end of the earth; say “Jehovah has vindicated his servant Jacob! 21 they did not go thirsty; he took them through the wastes, made water spirt from a rock for them; he split a rock and water ran and his people drank!”
22 There is no peace, says Jehovah, for the wicked!