Isaiah 48

1 Give ear to this, O family of Jacob, you who are named by the name of Israel, and have come out of the body of Judah; who take oaths by the name of the Lord, and make use of the name of the God of Israel, but not truly and not in good faith.

[Yahweh says], “You descendants [MTY] of Jacob, who are [also] descendants of Judah and are now called [the people of] Israel, Listen to me! You make solemn promises using my name, Yahweh, and you request that I, the God to whom you Israeli people belong, [will hear you], but you do not do it sincerely.

2 For they say that they are of the holy town, and put their faith in the God of Israel: the Lord of armies is his name.

You say that you live in the holy city [of Jerusalem], and [you insincerely say] that you are relying on me, the God to whom you [people of] Israel belong, the one who is the Commander of the armies of angels.

3 I gave word in the past of the things which came about; they came from my mouth, and I made them clear: suddenly I did them, and they came about.

Long ago I [MTY] predicted what would happen [DOU]. And then suddenly, I caused those things to happen.

4 Because I saw that your heart was hard, and that your neck was an iron cord, and your brow brass;

I knew that you people are very stubborn; I knew that your heads are [MET] [as hard as] iron or brass [DOU].

5 For this reason I made it clear to you in the past, before it came I gave you word of it: for fear that you might say, My god did these things, and my pictured and metal images made them come about.

That is why I told you those things long ago. Long before they occurred, I announced that they would occur, in order that [when they happened] you could not say ‘Our idols did it; our statue made of wood and our idol made of metal caused them to happen.’

6 All this has come to your ears and you have seen it; will you not give witness to it? I am now making clear new things, even secret things, of which you had no knowledge.

You have heard those things [that I predicted] and now you have seen that they have all occurred, so why do you not admit it [RHQ]? Now I will tell you new things, things that you have not known previously.

7 They have only now been effected, and not in the past: and before this day they had not come to your ears; for fear that you might say, I had knowledge of them.

I am causing them to happen now; they are not things I did long ago. So you cannot say, ‘We already knew about those things.’

8 Truly you had no word of them, no knowledge of them; no news of them in the past had come to your ears; because I saw how false was your behaviour, and that your heart was turned against me from your earliest days.

[I will tell you about] things that you have never heard about or understood before. Even long ago you did not pay attention to me [IDM]. I know that you act very deceitfully/treacherously; you have rebelled against me since you first became a nation [MTY].

9 Because of my name I will put away my wrath, and for my praise I will keep myself from cutting you off.

But, for my own sake, in order that I will be honored, I will not punish [MTY] you immediately and I will not completely get rid of you.

10 See, I have been testing you for myself like silver; I have put you through the fire of trouble.

I have purified you, but not the way [people refine] silver. Instead, I have caused you to suffer very much [to get rid of your impure behavior], like [MET] [people put metal in a very hot] furnace [to get rid of the impurities].

11 For myself, even because of my name, I will do it; for I will not let my name be shamed; and my glory I will not give to another.

But for my [MTY] own sake I will delay punishing you more; I will do it for my own sake in order that my reputation will not be damaged [RHQ]. I will not allow any [person or any idol] to be honored as I [deserve to be] honored.”

12 Give ear to me, Jacob, and Israel, my loved one; I am he, I am the first and I am the last.

“You descendants [MTY] of Jacob, you people of Israel whom I have chosen, listen to me! [Only] I am God; I am the one who begins everything and who causes everything to end.

13 Yes, by my hand was the earth placed on its base, and by my right hand the heavens were stretched out; at my word they take up their places.

I [SYN] am the one who laid the foundation of the earth. I stretched out the sky with my hand. And when I tell [the stars] to appear, they all do what I tell them.

14 Come together, all of you, and give ear; who among you has given news of these things? the Lord's loved one will do his pleasure with Babylon, and with the seed of the Chaldaeans.

All of you, gather together and listen to me. None of your idols has [RHQ] told this to you: I, Yahweh, have chosen [Cyrus] to assist me, and he will do to Babylon what I want him to do, and his army will get rid of [the army of] Babylonia.

15 I, even I, have given the word; I have sent for him: I have made him come, and have given effect to his undertakings.

I have said it; I have summoned [Cyrus]. I have appointed him, and he will accomplish everything that he attempts to do.

16 Come near to me, and give ear to this; from the start I did not keep it secret; from the time of its coming into existence I was there: and now the Lord God has sent me, and given me his spirit.

Come close to me and listen to what I say. Long ago [MTY] I told you plainly/clearly [LIT] [what would happen], and when those things occurred, I was [causing them to happen].” And now Yahweh the Lord and his Spirit have sent me [to give you a message].

17 The Lord who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, I am the Lord your God, who is teaching you for your profit, guiding you by the way in which you are to go.

This is what Yahweh, the one who saves you, the Holy God of [us] Israelis, says: “I am Yahweh, your God; I teach you what is important for you [to know]; I direct you and lead you to the roads that you should walk on [MET].

18 If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:

I wish that you had paid attention to my commands! If you had done that, things would have gone well for you like [SIM] a river that flows gently; you would have been successful again and again, like [SIM] waves that come without ceasing.

19 Your seed would have been like the sand, and your offspring like the dust: your name would not be cut off or come to an end before me.

Your descendants would have been [as many as] [MET] the grains of sand [on the seashore] [which no one can count]. I would not have needed to get rid of you; the country of [MTY] [Israel] would not have been destroyed.”

20 Go out of Babylon, go in flight from the Chaldaeans; with the sound of song make it clear, give the news, let the word go out even to the end of the earth: say, The Lord has taken up the cause of his servant Jacob.

[However, now I tell you], leave Babylon! Flee from [being slaves of the people of] Babylonia! Proclaim this message joyfully; send it to the most remote/distant places on the earth: Yahweh freed the people of Israel [from being slaves in Egypt].

21 They had no need of water when he was guiding them through the waste lands: he made water come out of the rock for them: the rock was parted and the waters came flowing out.

They were not thirsty when he led them through the desert, because he split open the rock and caused water to gush/flow out for them [to drink].

22 There is no peace, says the Lord, for the evil-doers.

“But things will not go well [like that] for wicked people,” says Yahweh.