Isaiah 41:21–29

²¹“Present your legal case,” says Yahweh.

“Bring your evidence,” says the king of Jacob.

²²Let them bring them,

and let them tell us what will happen.

Tell us what the former things are

so that^q we may take them to our heart

and know their outcome.^r

Declare to us the things to come;

²³tell us the things coming hereafter,^s

that^t we may know that you are gods.

Indeed, do good or^u do evil,

that^v we may be afraid and see^w together.

²⁴Look! you are nothing,

and your work is something worthless;

whoever chooses you is an abomination.

²⁵I stirred up one from the north,

and he has come from the rising of the sun.

He shall call on my name,

and he shall come on officials as on mortar,

and as the potter^x treads clay.

²⁶Who declared it from the beginning^y so that^z we might know,

and beforehand^a so that^b we might say, “He is right!”^c

Indeed, there was no one who declared it;

Indeed, there was no one who proclaimed it.

Indeed there was no one who heard your words.

²⁷First to Zion, look! Look at them!

And I give a herald^d of good tidings to Jerusalem.

²⁸But^e I look and there is no man,

and I look among these and there is no counselor,

that^f I might ask them and they might answer a word.

²⁹Look! All of them are deception;

their works are nothing;

their images are wind and emptiness.