48 Israel Refined for God’s Glory

48:1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. ²For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name.

³“The former things I declared of old; they went out from my mouth and I announced them; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass. ⁴Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, ⁵I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’

⁶“You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known. ⁷They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’ ⁸You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel.

⁹“For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. ¹⁰Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried^[1]you in the furnace of affliction. ¹¹For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name[2] be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

The Lord’s Call to Israel

¹²“Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. ¹³My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.

¹⁴“Assemble, all of you, and listen! who among them has declared these things? The Lord loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans. ¹⁵I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. ¹⁶Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” 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 paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; ¹⁹your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

²⁰Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!” ²¹They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out.

²²“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

[1] Or I have chosen [2] Hebrew lacks my name

49 The Servant of the Lord

49:1 Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. ²He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. ³And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”^[3]⁴But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.”

⁵And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— ⁶he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

⁷Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

The Restoration of Israel

⁸Thus says the Lord: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, ⁹saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ They shall feed along the ways; on all bare heights shall be their pasture; ¹⁰they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. ¹¹And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up. ¹²Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west,[4] and these from the land of Syene.”^[5]

¹³Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.

¹⁴But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. ¹⁶Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. ¹⁷Your builders make haste;[6] your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. ¹⁸Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does.

¹⁹“Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land— surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. ²⁰The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.’ ²¹Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?’”

²²Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. ²³Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

²⁴Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant[7] be rescued? ²⁵For thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. ²⁶I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

[3] Or I will display my beauty [4] Hebrew from the sea [5] Dead Sea Scroll; Masoretic Text Sinim [6] Dead Sea Scroll; Masoretic Text Your children make haste [7] Dead Sea Scroll, Syriac, Vulgate (see also verse 25); Masoretic Text of a righteous man

50 Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience

50:1 Thus says the Lord: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. ²Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. ³I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.”

⁴The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. ⁵The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. ⁶I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

⁷But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. ⁸ He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. ⁹Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

¹⁰Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. ¹¹Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.