Beginning

45 This is Jehovah’s message to Cyrus, God’s anointed, whom he has chosen to conquer many lands. God shall empower his right hand, and he shall crush the strength of mighty kings. God shall open the gates of Babylon to him; the gates shall not be shut against him anymore. ² I will go before you, Cyrus, and level the mountains and smash down the city gates of brass and iron bars. ³ And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness, secret riches; and you will know that I am doing this—I, the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by your name.

⁴ And why have I named you for this work? For the sake of Jacob, my servant—Israel, my chosen. I called you by name when you didn’t know me. ⁵ I am Jehovah; there is no other God. I will strengthen you and send you out to victory even though you don’t know me, ⁶ and all the world from east to west will know there is no other God. I am Jehovah and there is no one else. I alone am God. ⁷ I form the light and make the dark. I send good times and bad. I, Jehovah, am he who does these things. ⁸ Open up, O heavens. Let the skies pour out their righteousness. Let salvation and righteousness sprout up together from the earth. I, Jehovah, created them.

⁹ Woe to the man who fights with his Creator. Does the pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with him who forms it, saying, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” or the pot exclaim, “How clumsy can you be!”? ¹⁰ Woe to the baby just being born who squalls to his father and mother, “Why have you produced me? Can’t you do anything right at all?”

¹¹ Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, Israel’s Creator, says: “What right have you to question what I do? Who are you to command me concerning the work of my hands? ¹² I have made the earth and created man upon it. With my hands I have stretched out the heavens and commanded all the vast myriads of stars. ¹³ I have raised up Cyrus^[a] to fulfill my righteous purpose, and I will direct all his paths. He shall restore my city and free my captive people—and not for a reward!”

¹⁴ Jehovah says: “The Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Sabeans shall be subject to you. They shall come to you with all their merchandise, and it shall all be yours. They shall follow you as prisoners in chains and fall down on their knees before you and say, “The only God there is, is your God!”

¹⁵ Truly, O God of Israel, Savior, you work in strange, mysterious ways. ¹⁶ All who worship idols shall be disappointed and ashamed. ¹⁷ But Israel shall be saved by Jehovah with eternal salvation; they shall never be disappointed in their God through all eternity. ¹⁸ For Jehovah created the heavens and earth and put everything in place, and he made the world to be lived in, not to be an empty chaos. I am Jehovah, he says, and there is no other! ¹⁹ I publicly proclaim bold promises; I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner so that no one can know what I mean. And I didn’t tell Israel to ask me for what I didn’t plan to give! No, for I, Jehovah, speak only truth and righteousness.

²⁰ Gather together and come, you nations that escape from Cyrus’s hand. What fools they are who carry around the wooden idols and pray to gods that cannot save! ²¹ Consult together, argue your case and state your proofs that idol worship pays! Who but God has said that these things concerning Cyrus would come true? What idol ever told you they would happen? For there is no other God but me—a just God and a Savior—no, not one! ²² Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other. ²³ I have sworn by myself, and I will never go back on my word, for it is true—that every knee in all the world shall bow to me, and every tongue shall swear allegiance to my name.

²⁴ “In Jehovah is all my righteousness and strength,” the people shall declare. And all who were angry with him shall come to him and be ashamed. ²⁵ In Jehovah all the generations of Israel shall be justified, triumphant.

46 ^1-2 The idols of Babylon, Bel and Nebo,^[b] are being hauled away on ox carts! But look! The beasts are stumbling! The cart is turning over! The gods are falling out onto the ground! Is that the best that they can do? If they cannot even save themselves from such a fall, how can they save their worshipers from Cyrus?

³ “Listen to me, all Israel who are left; I have created you and cared for you since you were born. ⁴ I will be your God through all your lifetime, yes, even when your hair is white with age. I made you and I will care for you. I will carry you along and be your Savior.

⁵ “With what in all of heaven and earth do I compare? Whom can you find who equals me? ⁶ Will you compare me with an idol made lavishly with silver and with gold? They hire a goldsmith to take your wealth and make a god from it! Then they fall down and worship it! ⁷ They carry it around on their shoulders, and when they set it down, it stays there, for it cannot move! And when someone prays to it, there is no answer, for it cannot get him out of his trouble.

⁸ “Don’t forget this, O guilty ones. ⁹ And don’t forget the many times I clearly told you what was going to happen in the future. For I am God—I only—and there is no other like me ¹⁰ who can tell you what is going to happen. All I say will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. ¹¹ I will call that swift bird of prey from the east—that man Cyrus from far away. And he will come and do my bidding. I have said I would do it and I will. ¹² Listen to me, you stubborn, evil men! ¹³ For I am offering you my deliverance; not in the distant future, but right now! I am ready to save you, and I will restore Jerusalem and Israel, who is my glory.

47 “O Babylon, the unconquered, come sit in the dust; for your days of glory, pomp, and honor are ended. O daughter of Chaldea, never again will you be the lovely princess, tender and delicate. ² Take heavy millstones and grind the corn; remove your veil;^[c] strip off your robe; expose yourself to public view. ³ You shall be in nakedness and shame. I will take vengeance upon you and will not repent.”

⁴ So speaks our Redeemer, who will save Israel from Babylon’s mighty power; the Lord Almighty is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

⁵ Sit in darkness and silence, O Babylon; never again will you be called “The Queen of Kingdoms.” ⁶ For I was angry with my people Israel and began to punish them a little by letting them fall into your hands, O Babylon. But you showed them no mercy. You have made even the old folks carry heavy burdens. ⁷ You thought your reign would never end, Queen Kingdom of the world. You didn’t care a whit about my people or think about the fate of those who do them harm.

⁸ O pleasure-mad kingdom, living at ease, bragging as the greatest in the world—listen to the sentence of my court upon your sins. You say, “I alone am God! I’ll never be a widow; I’ll never lose my children.” ⁹ Well, those two things shall come upon you in one moment, in full measure in one day: widowhood and the loss of your children, despite all your witchcraft and magic.

¹⁰ You felt secure in all your wickedness. “No one sees me,” you said. Your “wisdom” and “knowledge” have caused you to turn away from me and claim that you yourself are Jehovah. ¹¹ That is why disaster shall overtake you suddenly—so suddenly that you won’t know where it comes from. And there will be no atonement then to cleanse away your sins.

¹² Call out the demon hordes you’ve worshiped all these years. Call on them to help you strike deep terror into many hearts again. ¹³ You have advisors by the ton—your astrologers and stargazers, who try to tell you what the future holds. ¹⁴ But they are as useless as dried grass burning in the fire. They cannot even deliver themselves! You’ll get no help from them at all. Theirs is no fire to sit beside to make you warm! ¹⁵ And all your friends of childhood days shall slip away and disappear, unable to help.

48 ^1-2 Hear me, my people: you swear allegiance to the Lord without meaning a word of it when you boast of living in the Holy City and brag about depending on the God of Israel. ³ Time and again I told you what was going to happen in the future. My words were scarcely spoken when suddenly I did just what I said. ⁴ I knew how hard and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron; you are as hardheaded as brass. ⁵ That is why I told you ahead of time what I was going to do, so that you could never say, “My idol did it; my carved image commanded it to happen!” ⁶ You have heard my predictions and seen them fulfilled, but you refuse to agree it is so. Now I will tell you new things I haven’t mentioned before, secrets you haven’t heard.

⁷ Then you can’t say, “We knew that all the time!”

⁸ Yes, I’ll tell you things entirely new, for I know so well what traitors you are, rebels from earliest childhood, rotten through and through. ⁹ Yet for my own sake and for the honor of my name I will hold back my anger and not wipe you out. ¹⁰ I refined you in the furnace of affliction, but found no silver there. You are worthless, with nothing good in you at all. ¹¹ Yet for my own sake—yes, for my own sake—I will save you from my anger and not destroy you lest the heathen say their gods have conquered me. I will not let them have my glory.

¹² Listen to me, my people, my chosen ones! I alone am God. I am the First; I am the Last. ¹³ It was my hand that laid the foundations of the earth; the palm of my right hand spread out the heavens above; I spoke and they came into being.

¹⁴ Come, all of you, and listen. Among all your idols, which one has ever told you this: “The Lord loves Cyrus. He will use him to put an end to the empire of Babylonia. He will utterly rout the armies of the Chaldeans”? ¹⁵ But I am saying it. I have called Cyrus; I have sent him on this errand, and I will prosper him.

¹⁶ Come closer and listen. I have always told you plainly what would happen, so that you could clearly understand. And now the Lord God and his Spirit have sent me (with this message):

¹⁷ The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: I am the Lord your God, who punishes you for your own good and leads you along the paths that you should follow.

¹⁸ Oh, that you had listened to my laws! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river, and great waves of righteousness. ¹⁹ Then you would have become as numerous as the sands along the seashores of the world, too many to count, and there would have been no need for your destruction.

²⁰ Yet even now, be free from your captivity! Leave Babylon, singing as you go; shout to the ends of the earth that the Lord has redeemed his servants, the Jews. ²¹ They were not thirsty when he led them through the deserts; he divided the rock, and water gushed out for them to drink. ²² But there is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.