3The former things I declared long ago,
    they went out from my mouth and I made them known;
    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 long ago,
    before they came to pass I announced them to you,
so that you would not say, “My idol did them,
    my carved image and my cast image commanded them.”

6You have heard; now see all this;
    and will you not declare it?
From this time forward I make you hear new things,
    hidden things that you have not known.
7They are created now, not long ago;
    before today you have never heard of them,
    so that you could not say, “I already 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 deal very treacherously,
    and that from birth you were called a rebel.

9For my name’s sake I defer my anger,
    for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
    so that I may not cut you off.
10See, I have refined you, but not like[b] silver;
    I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.
11For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
    for why should my name[c] be profaned?
    My glory I will not give to another.

12Listen 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 summon them,
    they stand at attention.

14Assemble, all of you, and hear!
    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 for your own good,
    who leads you in the way you should go.
18O that you had paid attention to my commandments!
    Then your prosperity would have been like a river,
    and your success 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 forth 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 open the rock and the water gushed out.

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