Isaiah 48

God Is of the Future

48Listen to this, people of Israel,

you that are descended from Judah:

You swear by the name of the Lord

and claim to worship the God of Israel—

but you don’t mean a word you say.

²And yet you are proud to say

that you are citizens of the holy city

and that you depend on Israel’s God,

whose name is the Lord Almighty.

³The Lord says to Israel,

“Long ago I predicted what would take place;

then suddenly I made it happen.

⁴I knew that you would prove to be stubborn,

as rigid as iron and unyielding as bronze.

⁵And so I predicted your future long ago,

announcing events before they took place,

to prevent you from claiming

that your idols and images made them happen.

⁶“All I foretold has now taken place;

you have to admit my predictions were right.

Now I will tell you of new things to come,

events that I did not reveal before.

⁷Only now am I making them happen;

nothing like this took place in the past.

If it had, you would claim

that you knew all about it.

⁸I knew that you couldn’t be trusted, that you have always been known as a rebel.

That is why you never heard of this at all, why no word of it ever came to your ears.

⁹“In order that people will praise my name,

I am holding my anger in check;

I am keeping it back and will not destroy you.

¹⁰I have tested you in the fire of suffering,

as silver is refined in a furnace.

But I have found that you are worthless.

¹¹What I do is done for my own sake—

I will not let my name be dishonoured

or let anyone else share the glory

that should be mine and mine alone.”

Cyrus, the ’s Chosen Leader

^12*The Lord says,

“Listen to me, Israel, the people I have called!

I am God, the first, the last, the only God!

¹³My hands made the earth’s foundations

and spread the heavens out.

When I summon earth and sky,

they come at once and present themselves.

¹⁴“Assemble and listen, all of you!

None of the gods could predict

that the man I have chosen would attack Babylon;

he will do what I want him to do.

¹⁵I am the one who spoke and called him;

I led him out and gave him success.

¹⁶“Now come close to me and hear what I say.

From the beginning I have spoken openly,

and have always made my words come true.”

(Now the Sovereign Lord has given me his power and sent me.)

¹⁷The holy God of Israel,

the Lord who saves you, says:

“I am the Lord your God,

the one who wants to teach you for your own good

and direct you in the way you should go.

¹⁸“If only you had listened to my commands!

Then blessings would have flowed for you like a stream that never goes dry!

Victory would have come to you

like the waves that roll on the shore.

¹⁹Your descendants would be as numerous as grains of sand,

and I would have made sure they were never destroyed.”

^20*Go out from Babylon, go free!

Shout the news gladly; make it known everywhere:

“The Lord has saved his servant Israel!”

²¹When the Lord led his people through a hot, dry desert,

they did not suffer from thirst.

He made water come from a rock for them;

he split the rock open, and water flowed out.

^22*“There is no safety for sinners,” says the Lord.