‘What is your mother? A lioness:
She lay down among the lions;
Among the young lions she nourished her cubs.
³ She brought up one of her cubs,
And ^(B)he became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey,
And he devoured men.
⁴ The nations also heard of him;
He was trapped in their pit,
And they brought him with chains to the land of ^(C)Egypt.

⁵ ‘When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost,
She took ^(D)another of her cubs and made him a young lion.
^6 (E)He roved among the lions,
And ^(F)became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey;
He devoured men.
^7 [a]He knew their desolate places,
And laid waste their cities;
The land with its fullness was desolated
By the noise of his roaring.
^8 (G)Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side,
And spread their net over him;
^(H)He was trapped in their pit.
^9 (I)They put him in a cage with ^[b]chains,
And brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in nets,
That his voice should no longer be heard on ^(J)the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ ‘Your mother was ^(K)like a vine in your ^[c]bloodline,
Planted by the waters,
^(L)Fruitful and full of branches
Because of many waters.
¹¹ She had strong branches for scepters of rulers.
^(M)She towered in stature above the thick branches,
And was seen in her height amid the ^[d]dense foliage.
¹² But she was ^(N)plucked up in fury,
She was cast down to the ground,
And the ^(O)east wind dried her fruit.
Her strong branches were broken and withered;
The fire consumed them.
¹³ And now she is planted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.
^14 (P)Fire has come out from a rod of her branches
And devoured her fruit,
So that she has no strong branch—a scepter for ruling.’ ”

³ “I have ^(D)declared the former things from the beginning;
They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it.
Suddenly I did them, ^(E)and they came to pass.
⁴ Because I knew that you were ^[a]obstinate,
And ^(F)your neck was an iron sinew,
And your brow bronze,
⁵ Even from the beginning I have declared it to you;
Before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you,
Lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my carved image and my molded image
Have commanded them.’

⁶ “You have heard;
See all this.
And will you not declare it?
I have made you hear new things from this time,
Even hidden things, and you did not know them.
⁷ They are created now and not from the beginning;
And before this day you have not heard them,
Lest you should say, ‘Of course I knew them.’
⁸ Surely you did not hear,
Surely you did not know;
Surely from long ago your ear was not opened.
For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,
And were called ^(G)a transgressor from the womb.

⁹ “For^(H) My name’s sake ^(I)I will ^[b]defer My anger,
And for My praise I will restrain it from you,
So that I do not cut you off.
¹⁰ Behold, ^(J)I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the ^(K)furnace of affliction.
¹¹ For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it;
For ^(L)how should My name be profaned?
And ^(M)I will not give My glory to another.

¹⁴ “All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear!
Who among them has declared these things?
^(R)The Lord loves him;
^(S)He shall do His pleasure on Babylon,
And His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken;
Yes, ^(T)I have called him,
I have brought him, and his way will prosper.

¹⁶ “Come near to Me, hear this:
^(U)I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
From the time that it was, I was there.
And now ^(V)the Lord God and His Spirit
^[c]Have sent Me.”

¹⁷ Thus says ^(W)the Lord, your Redeemer,
The Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
Who teaches you to profit,
^(X)Who leads you by the way you should go.
^18 (Y)Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
^(Z)Then your peace would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
^19 (AA)Your descendants also would have been like the sand,
And the offspring of your body like the grains of sand;
His name would not have been cut off
Nor destroyed from before Me.”

^20 (AB)Go forth from Babylon!
Flee from the Chaldeans!
With a voice of singing,
Declare, proclaim this,
Utter it to the end of the earth;
Say, “The Lord has ^(AC)redeemed
His servant Jacob!”
²¹ And they ^(AD)did not thirst
When He led them through the deserts;
He ^(AE)caused the waters to flow from the rock for them;
He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out.

²² “There^(AF) is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”