Isaiah 42:14-25

Good News Translation

God Promises to Help His People

¹⁴God says,

“For a long time I kept silent;
    I did not answer my people.
But now the time to act has come;
    I cry out like a woman in labor.
¹⁵I will destroy the hills and mountains
    and dry up the grass and trees.
I will turn the river valleys into deserts^[a]
    and dry up the pools of water.

¹⁶“I will lead my blind people
    by roads they have never traveled.
I will turn their darkness into light
    and make rough country smooth before them.
These are my promises,
    and I will keep them without fail.
¹⁷All who trust in idols,
    who call images their gods,
    will be humiliated and disgraced.”

Israel's Failure to Learn

¹⁸The Lord says,

“Listen, you deaf people!
    Look closely, you that are blind!
¹⁹Is anyone more blind than my servant,
    more deaf than the messenger I send?
²⁰Israel, you have seen so much,
    but what has it meant to you?
You have ears to hear with,
    but what have you really heard?”

²¹The Lord is a God who is eager to save,
    so he exalted his laws and teachings,
    and he wanted his people to honor them.
²²But now his people have been plundered;
    they are locked up in dungeons
    and hidden away in prisons.
They were robbed and plundered,
    with no one to come to their rescue.

²³Will any of you listen to this?
    From now on will you listen with care?
²⁴Who gave Israel up to the looters?
    It was the Lord himself, against whom we sinned!
We would not live as he wanted us to live
    or obey the teachings he gave us.
²⁵So he made us feel the force of his anger
    and suffer the violence of war.
Like fire his anger burned throughout Israel,
    but we never knew what was happening;
    we learned nothing at all from it.