48
The people of Israel are stubborn
1 You descendants of Jacob,
who are also descendants of Judah and now called the people of Israel,
Listen to me!
You make solemn promises using my name, Yahweh,
and request that God, to whom you Israeli people belong, will hear you,
but you do not do it sincerely.
2 You insincerely say that you live in the holy city of Jerusalem
and that you are relying on the God to whom you people of Israel belong,
the one who is your Supreme Commander.
3 Long ago I predicted what would happen [DOU].
Then suddenly, I acted, and caused those things to happen.
4 I knew that you people are very stubborn;
I knew that your heads are as hard as iron or brass [DOU].
5 That is why I told you those things long ago.
Long before they occurred, I announced that they would occur,
in order that you could not say
‘Our idols did it;
our statue made of wood and our idol made of metal caused them to happen.’
6 You have heard those things that I predicted
and now you have seen that they occurred,
so why do you not admit it [RHQ]?
Now I will tell you new things,
things that you have not known before.
7 I am creating them now;
they are not things I did long ago.
So, you cannot say, ‘We already knew about those things.’
8 I will tell you about things that you have never heard about or understood before.
Even long ago you did not pay attention to me [IDI].
I know that you act very treacherously;
you have rebelled against me since you first became a nation [MTY].
9 But, for my own sake, in order that I will be honored,
I will delay punishing [MTY] you
and not completely get rid of you.
10 I have purified you, but not the way people refine silver.
Instead, I have caused you to suffer very much to get rid of your impure behavior
like [MET] people put metal in a very hot furnace to get rid of the impurities.
11 But for my own sake I will delay punishing you more;
I will do it for my own sake
in order that my reputation will not be damaged [RHQ].
I will not allow any person or idol to be honored as I deserve to be honored.
The people of Israel should leave Babylon because that city will be destroyed
12 You descendants of Jacob, you people of Israel whom I have chosen,
listen to me!
Only I am God;
I am the one who began everything and who will end everything.
13 I [SYN] am the one who laid the foundation of he earth.
I stretched out the sky with my hand.
And when I tell the stars to appear,
they all do what I tell them.
14 All of you, gather around and listen to me.
None of your idols have [RHQ] told this to you:
I, Yahweh, have chosen Cyrus to assist me,
and he will do to Babylon what I tell him to do,
and he will get rid of the army of Babylonia.
15 I have said it:
I have summoned him.
I will appoint him,
and he will accomplish everything he attempts to do.
16 Come close to me, and listen to what I say,
because from the beginning I told you plainly [LIT] what would happen,
and when those things occurred, I was causing them to occur.”
And now Yahweh the Lord and his Spirit have sent me to give you a message.
17 This is what Yahweh, the one who saves you, the Holy God of us Israelis, says:
“I am Yahweh, your God;
I teach you what is good for you;
I direct you and lead you to the roads that you should walk on.
18 I wish that you had paid attention to my commands!
If you had done that, things would have gone well for you
like [SIM] a river that flows gently;
you would have had one success after another,
like [SIM] waves that come without ceasing.
19 Your descendants would have been as many as [MET] the grains of sand on the seashore
which no one can count.
I would not have needed to get rid of you;
the country of [MTY] Israel would never have been destroyed.
20 However, now I tell you
leave Babylon!
Flee from being slaves of the people of Babylonia!
Proclaim this message joyfully;
send it to the most remote places on the earth:
21 I, Yahweh, freed the people of Israel, from being slaves in Egypt;
They were not thirsty when I led them through the desert,
because I split open the rock
and caused water to gush/flow out for them to drink.
22 But things will not go well like that for wicked people.
Note: The Old Testament in this translation is still being worked on, and is in draft form. Updates will be posted at eBible.org/t4t/.