Isaiah, Chapter 48

1. Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and have come forth 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 people of the holy city, and rely on the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.    3. I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I made them known; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.    4. Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow brass;    5. I have even from the beginning declared it to you; before it came to pass I made it known to you: so that you would not say, My idol has done them, and my sculptured 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 from the beginning; even before the day when you did not hear them; so that you would not 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 knew that you would deal very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.    9. For my name's sake will I defer my anger, and for my praise will I restrain for you, so 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 own sake, even for my own sake, will I do it: for how could my name be polluted? 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 spanned the heavens: when I call to them, they stand up together.    14. All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear; who among them has declared these things? The LORD has loved him: he will accomplish his purpose concerning Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.    15. I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.    16. Come near to me, and 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, have 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. O that you had obeyed the words of my commandments! then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea:    19. Your children also would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your body like the pebbles thereof; his name would not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.    20. Go out from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, proclaim it even to the end of the earth; say, The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob.    21. And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.    22. There is no peace, says the LORD, for the wicked.