Isaiah 44-48

New International Version - UK

⁹ All who make idols are nothing,
    and the things they treasure are worthless.
Those who would speak up for them are blind;
    they are ignorant, to their own shame.
¹⁰ Who shapes a god and casts an idol,
    which can profit nothing?
¹¹ People who do that will be put to shame;
    such craftsmen are only human beings.
Let them all come together and take their stand;
    they will be brought down to terror and shame.

¹² The blacksmith takes a tool
    and works with it in the coals;
he shapes an idol with hammers,
    he forges it with the might of his arm.
He gets hungry and loses his strength;
    he drinks no water and grows faint.
¹³ The carpenter measures with a line
    and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
    and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human form,
    human form in all its glory,
    that it may dwell in a shrine.
¹⁴ He cut down cedars,
    or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
    or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
¹⁵ It is used as fuel for burning;
    some of it he takes and warms himself,
    he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
    he makes an idol and bows down to it.
¹⁶ Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
    over it he prepares his meal,
    he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
    ‘Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.’
¹⁷ From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
    he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
    ‘Save me! You are my god!’
¹⁸ They know nothing, they understand nothing;
    their eyes are plastered over so that they cannot see,
    and their minds closed so that they cannot understand.
¹⁹ No one stops to think,
    no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
‘Half of it I used for fuel;
    I even baked bread over its coals,
    I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
    Shall I bow down to a block of wood?’
²⁰ Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him;
    he cannot save himself, or say,
    ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?’

²¹ ‘Remember these things, Jacob,
    for you, Israel, are my servant.
I have made you, you are my servant;
    Israel, I will not forget you.
²² I have swept away your offences like a cloud,
    your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
    for I have redeemed you.’

²³ Sing for joy, you heavens, for the Lord has done this;
    shout aloud, you earth beneath.
Burst into song, you mountains,
    you forests and all your trees,
for the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
    he displays his glory in Israel.

I am the Lord,
    the Maker of all things,
    who stretches out the heavens,
    who spreads out the earth by myself,
²⁵ who foils the signs of false prophets
    and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise
    and turns it into nonsense,
²⁶ who carries out the words of his servants
    and fulfils the predictions of his messengers,

who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be inhabited,”
    of the towns of Judah, “They shall be rebuilt,”
    and of their ruins, “I will restore them,”
²⁷ who says to the watery deep, “Be dry,
    and I will dry up your streams,”
²⁸ who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd
    and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt,’
    and of the temple, ‘Let its foundations be laid.’”

45 ‘This is what the Lord says to his anointed,
    to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
    and to strip kings of their armour,
to open doors before him
    so that gates will not be shut:
² I will go before you
    and will level the mountains;^[b]
I will break down gates of bronze
    and cut through bars of iron.
³ I will give you hidden treasures,
    riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
⁴ For the sake of Jacob my servant,
    of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
    and bestow on you a title of honour,
    though you do not acknowledge me.
⁵ I am the Lord, and there is no other;
    apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
    though you have not acknowledged me,
⁶ so that from the rising of the sun
    to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
    I am the Lord, and there is no other.
⁷ I form the light and create darkness,
    I bring prosperity and create disaster;
    I, the Lord, do all these things.

⁸ ‘You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;
    let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
    let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it;
    I, the Lord, have created it.

⁹ ‘Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker,
    those who are nothing but potsherds
    among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
    “What are you making?”
Does your work say,
    “The potter has no hands”?
¹⁰ Woe to the one who says to a father,
    “What have you begotten?”
or to a mother,
    “What have you brought to birth?”

¹¹ ‘This is what the Lord says –
    the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
concerning things to come,
    do you question me about my children,
    or give me orders about the work of my hands?
¹² It is I who made the earth
    and created mankind on it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
    I marshalled their starry hosts.
¹³ I will raise up Cyrus^[c] in my righteousness:
    I will make all his ways straight.
He will rebuild my city
    and set my exiles free,
but not for a price or reward,
    says the Lord Almighty.’

‘The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush,^[d]
    and those tall Sabeans –
they will come over to you
    and will be yours;
they will trudge behind you,
    coming over to you in chains.
They will bow down before you
    and plead with you, saying,
“Surely God is with you, and there is no other;
    there is no other god.”’

¹⁵ Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself,
    the God and Saviour of Israel.
¹⁶ All the makers of idols will be put to shame and disgraced;
    they will go off into disgrace together.
¹⁷ But Israel will be saved by the Lord
    with an everlasting salvation;
you will never be put to shame or disgraced,
    to ages everlasting.

¹⁸ For this is what the Lord says –
he who created the heavens,
    he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
    he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
    but formed it to be inhabited –
he says:
‘I am the Lord,
    and there is no other.
¹⁹ I have not spoken in secret,
    from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
    “Seek me in vain.”
I, the Lord, speak the truth;
    I declare what is right.

²⁰ ‘Gather together and come;
    assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,
    who pray to gods that cannot save.
²¹ Declare what is to be, present it –
    let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
    who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the Lord?
    And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Saviour;
    there is none but me.

²² ‘Turn to me and be saved,
    all you ends of the earth;
    for I am God, and there is no other.
²³ By myself I have sworn,
    my mouth has uttered in all integrity
    a word that will not be revoked:
before me every knee will bow;
    by me every tongue will swear.
²⁴ They will say of me, “In the Lord alone
    are deliverance and strength.”’
All who have raged against him
    will come to him and be put to shame.
²⁵ But all the descendants of Israel
    will find deliverance in the Lord
    and will make their boast in him.

³ ‘Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob,
    all the remnant of the people of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since your birth,
    and have carried since you were born.
⁴ Even to your old age and grey hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

⁵ ‘With whom will you compare me or count me equal?
    To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
⁶ Some pour out gold from their bags
    and weigh out silver on the scales;
they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god,
    and they bow down and worship it.
⁷ They lift it to their shoulders and carry it;
    they set it up in its place, and there it stands.
    From that spot it cannot move.
Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer;
    it cannot save them from their troubles.

⁸ ‘Remember this, keep it in mind,
    take it to heart, you rebels.
⁹ Remember the former things, those of long ago;
    I am God, and there is no other;
    I am God, and there is none like me.
¹⁰ I make known the end from the beginning,
    from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, “My purpose will stand,
    and I will do all that I please.”
¹¹ From the east I summon a bird of prey;
    from a far-off land, a man to fulfil my purpose.
What I have said, that I will bring about;
    what I have planned, that I will do.
¹² Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted,
    you who are now far from my righteousness.
¹³ I am bringing my righteousness near,
    it is not far away;
    and my salvation will not be delayed.
I will grant salvation to Zion,
    my splendour to Israel.

⁴ Our Redeemer – the Lord Almighty is his name –
    is the Holy One of Israel.

⁵ ‘Sit in silence, go into darkness,
    queen city of the Babylonians;
no more will you be called
    queen of kingdoms.
⁶ I was angry with my people
    and desecrated my inheritance;
I gave them into your hand,
    and you showed them no mercy.
Even on the aged
    you laid a very heavy yoke.
⁷ You said, “I am for ever –
    the eternal queen!”
But you did not consider these things
    or reflect on what might happen.

⁸ ‘Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure,
    lounging in your security
and saying to yourself,
    “I am, and there is none besides me.
I will never be a widow
    or suffer the loss of children.”
⁹ Both of these will overtake you
    in a moment, on a single day:
    loss of children and widowhood.
They will come upon you in full measure,
    in spite of your many sorceries
    and all your potent spells.
¹⁰ You have trusted in your wickedness
    and have said, “No one sees me.”
Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
    when you say to yourself,
    “I am, and there is none besides me.”
¹¹ Disaster will come upon you,
    and you will not know how to conjure it away.
A calamity will fall upon you
    that you cannot ward off with a ransom;
a catastrophe you cannot foresee
    will suddenly come upon you.

¹² ‘Keep on, then, with your magic spells
    and with your many sorceries,
    which you have laboured at since childhood.
Perhaps you will succeed,
    perhaps you will cause terror.
¹³ All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
    Let your astrologers come forward,
those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
    let them save you from what is coming upon you.
¹⁴ Surely they are like stubble;
    the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
    from the power of the flame.
These are not coals for warmth;
    this is not a fire to sit by.
¹⁵ That is all they are to you –
    these you have dealt with
    and laboured with since childhood.
All of them go on in their error;
    there is not one that can save you.

‘From now on I will tell you of new things,
    of hidden things unknown to you.
⁷ They are created now, and not long ago;
    you have not heard of them before today.
So you cannot say,
    “Yes, I knew of them.”
⁸ You have neither heard nor understood;
    from of old your ears have not been open.
Well do I know how treacherous you are;
    you were called a rebel from birth.
⁹ For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath;
    for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you,
    so as not to destroy you completely.
¹⁰ See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
    I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
¹¹ For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
    How can I let myself be defamed?
    I will not yield my glory to another.

¹⁴ ‘Come together, all of you, and listen:
    which of the idols has foretold these things?
The Lord’s chosen ally
    will carry out his purpose against Babylon;
    his arm will be against the Babylonians.^[g]
15 I, even I, have spoken;
    yes, I have called him.
I will bring him,
    and he will succeed in his mission.

‘From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret;
    at the time it happens, I am there.’

And now the Sovereign Lord has sent me,
    endowed with his Spirit.

¹⁷ This is what the Lord says –
    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
‘I am the Lord your God,
    who teaches you what is best for you,
    who directs you in the way you should go.
¹⁸ If only you had paid attention to my commands,
    your peace would have been like a river,
    your well-being like the waves of the sea.
¹⁹ Your descendants would have been like the sand,
    your children like its numberless grains;
their name would never be blotted out
    nor destroyed from before me.’

²⁰ Leave Babylon,
    flee from the Babylonians!
Announce this with shouts of joy
    and proclaim it.
Send it out to the ends of the earth;
    say, ‘The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.’
²¹ They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;
    he made water flow for them from the rock;
he split the rock
    and water gushed out.

²² ‘There is no peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked.’