Isaiah 48:12-21

Common English Bible

¹² Listen to me, Jacob;
    Israel, whom I called:
        I am the one;
        I am the first and I am the last.
¹³ My hand founded the earth;
    my strong hand spread out the heavens.
    When I call to them, they all stand up.
¹⁴ Gather yourselves, all of you, and listen.
    Who among you announced these things?
        “The Lord loves him.
        He will do what God wants with Babylon
        and with the descendants^[a] of Chaldea.”
¹⁵ I, I have spoken and told him
    the things that will happen to him;
    I will make him succeed.
¹⁶ Come close to me; listen to this:
    Since the very beginning I haven’t spoken in secret.
    Whenever anything happens, I am there.
    (And now the Lord God has sent me with his spirit.)

¹⁷ The Lord your redeemer,
    the holy one of Israel, proclaims:
    I am the Lord your God
        who teaches you for your own good,
        who leads you in the way you should go.
¹⁸ If you would pay attention to my commands,
    your well-being would be like a river,
    and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
¹⁹ Your offspring would be like the sand,
    and your descendants like its grains.
    Their name would never be eliminated,
        never wiped out from before me.

²⁰ Go out from Babylon;
    flee from the Chaldeans!
Report this with a loud shout, proclaim it;
    broadcast it out to the end of the earth.
    Say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!”
²¹ They weren’t thirsty when he led them through the deserts.
    God made water flow from the rock for them;
    split the rock, and water flowed out.