A message to faithless, stubborn Israel
48
📚✭“Hear this, O house of Jacob,
you who are called
by the name of Israel,
who have come from the waters
of Judah,
who swear by the name
of the LORD,
and invoke the God of Israel,
but not in truth✭
or in righteousness.
2 📚For they call themselves
after the holy city✭,
and lean on the God of Israel;
the LORD of hosts is
his name.
3 📚✭I have declared the former
things long ago;
and they went out
of my mouth,
and I declared them.
Suddenly I acted,
and they took place.
4 📚Because I knew
that you are obstinate,
and your neck is
an iron sinew,
and your brow bronze,
5 📚I declared it
to you long ago.
Before it happened I declared it
to you,
so that you could not say,
‘My idol has done them,
and my carved image and my cast
metal image has commanded
them.’
6 📚You have heard;
look at all this.
And will you not declare it?
From this time I tell you new things,
hidden things that
you have not known.
7 They are created now,
and not long ago;
and before this day
you have not heard them,
so that you cannot say,
‘See, I knew them.’
8 📚You certainly did not hear;
you certainly did not know✭;
from that time your ear
certainly was not opened;
for I knew that you would deal
very treacherously,
and that you were called
a transgressor from the womb.
9 📚✭“For my name’s sake
I will delay my anger,
and for my praise I will
restrain it from you,
so that I do not cut you off.
10 📚✭See,
I have refined you,
but not as silver;
I have chosen you
in the furnace of affliction.
11 📚✭For my own sake,
yes,
for my own sake,
I will do it;
for why should my name
be profaned?
And I will not give my glory
to another.
12 📚Listen to me,
O Jacob and Israel,
my called people;
I am he;
I am the first,
I am also the last✭.
13 📚And my hand has laid
the foundation of the earth,
and my right hand has spanned
the heavens✭.
When I call to them,
they stand up together✭.
14 📚All of you,
assemble yourselves and listen.
Who among them has declared✭
these things✭?
The LORD loves him;
he will carry out his pleasure on Babylon,
and his arm will be against
the Chaldeans✭.
15 📚I, I myself,
have spoken;
yes, I have called him.
I have brought him,
and he will make his way successful.
16 📚✭Come near to me;
listen to this.
From the first I have not spoken
in secret.
From the time that it happened,
I am there.
And now the Lord God,
with his spirit,
has sent me.
17 📚Thus says the LORD,
your Redeemer✭,
the Holy One✭ of Israel:
“I am the LORD your God
who teaches✭ you to your
benefit,
who leads you in the way
that you should go.
18 📚“O that you had listened
to my commandments!
Then your peace would
have been like a river,
and your righteousness✭ like
the waves✭ of the sea,
19 📚And your descendants
would have been like the sand✭,
and the offspring of your body
like its grains;
his name would not have been
cut off or destroyed from
my presence”.
20 📚✭Go out of Babylon!
Flee from the Chaldeans.
With a voice of singing declare,
tell this, send it out
to the ends of the earth,
saying, “The LORD has redeemed
his servant Jacob”.
21 📚✭And they did not thirst
when he led them
through the deserts.
He caused water to flow out
of the rock for them.
He also split the rock,
and water gushed out.
22 📚✭“There is no peace”,
says the LORD,
“for the wicked”.