Isaiah, Chapter 48

1. Hear you this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which 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 of the holy city, and stay themselves 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 showed them; 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 showed it you: lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, has commanded them.    6. You have heard, see all this; and will not you declare it? I have showed 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 heard them not; lest you should say, Behold, I knew them.    8. Yes, you heard not; yes, you knew not; yes, from that 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 refrain for you, that I cut you not 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 should 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 you, assemble yourselves, and hear; which 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; yes, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.    16. Come you near to me, hear you 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 said the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD your God which teaches you to profit, which leads you by the way that you should go.    18. O that you had listened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:    19. Your seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.    20. Go you forth of Babylon, flee you from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare you, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say you, 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, said the LORD, to the wicked.