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 the LORD and make mention of the God of Israel (but not in truth nor in righteousness);

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

3. I have foretold the former things from ages ago; and they went out of My mouth; and I proclaimed them; I acted suddenly; and they came to pass,

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

5. And I have even declared it to you ages ago. Before it came to pass I revealed it to you; lest you should say, ‘My idol has done these things, and my graven image, and my molten image, has commanded them.’

6. You have heard, see all this; and will you not declare it? 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 ages ago; even before today 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 ages ago your ear was not opened; for I surely knew that you would deal very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.

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

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

11. For My own sake, 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. Hearken 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. When I call they stand up together.

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

15. I, even 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 the time that it was, there am I.” And now the Lord GOD, and 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 profit, Who leads you by the way that you should go.

18. Oh, 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.

19. And your seed would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your loins like grains of sand; their 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, “The LORD 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 the LORD, “for the wicked.”