Israel Refined for God’s Glory

¹Hear this, O house of Jacob,

who are called by the name of Israel,

and have come forth from the waters of Judah;

who swear by the name of the Lord ,

and invoke the God of Israel,

but not in truth or in righteousness;

²for they call themselves after the holy city,

and lean on the God of Israel;

the Lord of Hosts is His name:

³I have declared the former things from the beginning;

and they went forth from My mouth, and I announced them.

Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.

⁴Because I knew that you are obstinate,

and your neck is an iron sinew,

and your brow bronze;

⁵Even from the beginning I have declared it to you;

before it came to pass I announced it to you,

lest you should say,

“My idol has done them,

and my carved image and my molded image has commanded them.”

⁶You have heard; see all this.

And will you not declare it?

I have shown you new things from this time,

even hidden things, and you did not know them.

⁷They are created now and not from the beginning;

before today you did not hear them,

lest you should say,

“Behold, I knew them.”

⁸You have not heard, you have not known,

indeed, from long ago your ear has not been open.

For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,

and that from birth you have been called a rebel.

⁹For My name’s sake I will defer My anger,

and for My praise I will restrain it for you

so that you are not cut off.

¹⁰Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver;[#Jer 9:7]

I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

¹¹For My own sake, even for My own sake, I will do it;[#Isa 42:8; Eze 20:9]

for how can My name be polluted?

And I will not give My glory to another.

The Lord ’s Call to Israel

¹²Listen to Me, O Jacob

and Israel, whom I called:

I am He;

I am the First, and I am the Last.

¹³My hand also has laid the foundation of the earth,

and My right hand has spanned the heavens;

when I call to them,

they stand up together.

¹⁴Assemble, all of you, and listen.[#Isa 13:4–5; 43:9]

Who among them has declared these things?

The Lord has loved him;

he will do His pleasure on Babylon,

and His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

¹⁵I, even I, have spoken,

and I have called him;

I have brought him,

and his way will prosper.

¹⁶Come near to Me, hear this:

I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;

from the time that it was, there I am.

And now the Lord God has sent me

and His Spirit.

¹⁷Thus 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.

¹⁸Oh, that you had listened to My commandments![#Dt 32:29]

Then your peace would have been as a river

and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.

¹⁹Your descendants also would have been as the sand

and your offspring like grains of sand;

their name would not have been cut off

nor destroyed from before Me.

²⁰Go forth from Babylon!

Flee from the Chaldeans!

With a voice of singing declare,

proclaim this,

utter it even to the ends of the earth;

say, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.”

²¹They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts;

He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them;

He also split the rock,

and the waters gushed out.

²²“There is no peace,” says the Lord , “for the wicked.”[#Isa 57:21]