Isaiah 48

1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and have come out of the waters of Judah; who swear by the name of Jehovah and make mention of the God of Israel (but not in truth nor in righteousness).

2 For they call themselves of the holy city, and rest themselves on the God of Israel; Jehovah of Hosts is His name.

3 I have foretold the former things from the beginning; and they went out of My mouth; and I made them hear; I acted suddenly; and they came about.

4 Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your brow bronze.

5 And I declared it to you from the beginning. Before it happened I revealed it to you; lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, has commanded them.

6 You heard; see it all; and will you not declare? I have shown you new things from this time, even hidden things, and you did not know them.

7 They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when you did not hear them; lest you should say, Behold, I knew them.

8 Yea, you did not hear; yea, you did not know; yea, from the time that your ear was not opened; for I surely know that you will betray and trespass; from the womb it was called to you.

9 For My name's sake I will put off My anger, and for My praise I will hold back for you, that I do not cut you off.

10 Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

11 For my sake, for My sake I will do it; for why should My name be defiled? And I will not give My glory to another.

12 Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, My called; I am He; I am the first, I also am the last.

13 My hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens. I called; they stood up together.

14 Let all of you gather and hear; who among them has declared these things? Jehovah has loved him; He will do His pleasure on Babylon, and His arm shall be on the Chaldeans.

15 I, I, have spoken; yea, I have called him; I brought him and he makes his way succeed.

16 Come near to Me, hear this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. From its being, I was there; and now the Lord Jehovah, and His Spirit, has sent Me.

17 So says Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go.

18 Oh that you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

19 And your seed would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your bowels like its grain; his name would not have been cut off nor destroyed from before Me.

20 Go out of Babylon; flee from the Chaldeans. Tell it with a voice of singing, let this be heard, let it go out to the end of the earth; say, Jehovah has redeemed His servant Jacob.

21 And they did not thirst when He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; He cut open the rock also, and the waters gushed out.

22 There is no peace, says Jehovah, to the wicked.