Isaiah 48:3-22

48:3 “I announced events beforehand,

I issued the decrees and made the predictions;

suddenly I acted and they came to pass.

48:4 I did this because I know how stubborn you are.

Your neck muscles are like iron

and your forehead like bronze.

48:5 I announced them to you beforehand;

before they happened, I predicted them for you,

so you could never say,

‘My image did these things,

my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

48:6 You have heard; now look at all the evidence!

Will you not admit that what I say is true?

From this point on I am announcing to you new events

that are previously unrevealed and you do not know about.

48:7 Now they come into being, not in the past;

before today you did not hear about them,

so you could not say,

‘Yes, I know about them.’

48:8 You did not hear,

you do not know,

you were not told beforehand.

For I know that you are very deceitful;

you were labeled a rebel from birth.

48:9 For the sake of my reputation I hold back my anger;

for the sake of my prestige I restrain myself from destroying you.

48:10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;

I have purified you in the furnace of misery.

48:11 For my sake alone I will act,

for how can I allow my name to be defiled?

I will not share my glory with anyone else!

48:12 Listen to me, O Jacob,

Israel, whom I summoned!

I am the one;

I am present at the very beginning

and at the very end.

48:13 Yes, my hand founded the earth;

my right hand spread out the sky.

I summon them;

they stand together.

48:14 All of you, gather together and listen!

Who among them announced these things?

The Lord’s ally will carry out his desire against Babylon;

he will exert his power against the Babylonians.

48:15 I, I have spoken –

yes, I have summoned him;

I lead him and he will succeed.

48:16 Approach me! Listen to this!

From the very first I have not spoken in secret;

when it happens, I am there.”

So now, the sovereign Lord has sent me, accompanied by his spirit.

48:17 This is what the Lord, your protector, says,

the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you how to succeed,

who leads you in the way you should go.

48:18 If only you had obeyed my commandments,

prosperity would have flowed to you like a river,

deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea.

48:19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand,

and your children like its granules.

Their name would not have been cut off

and eliminated from my presence.

48:20 Leave Babylon!

Flee from the Babylonians!

Announce it with a shout of joy!

Make this known!

Proclaim it throughout the earth!

Say, ‘The Lord protects his servant Jacob.

48:21 They do not thirst as he leads them through dry regions;

he makes water flow out of a rock for them;

he splits open a rock and water flows out.’

48:22 There will be no prosperity for the wicked,” says the Lord.