Besides Me There Is No God

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.

He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.

Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!”

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,

I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,

that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?

For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other.

“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.

even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,

Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”:

You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.”

The Lord's Call to Israel

“Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.

And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength—

Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

“I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass,

I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name.

There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; there is none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.

Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am.”

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”