God will say something new
1The Lord says:
‘Descendants of Jacob,
you who have the name of Israel
and who come from the Judah tribe,
you must listen to what I say.
You use the name of the Lord
and say that the Lord is your Witness
when you promise something.
You say that you serve the God of Israel
but you don't really serve Him.
2You say that you are people of the Holy City
and you think that the God of Israel will help you.
His name is the Lord, and He rules over all.
3But long ago I said what would happen.
I told you what I would do and I did it.
It happened suddenly.
4I knew that you were stubborn.
Your heads are as hard as iron or bronze.
5That is why I told you long ago
what would happen to you.
You can not say it was your idols
that made these things happen.
The images that you made yourselves
did not make them happen.
6You have heard what I said,
and you have seen what has happened.
You must say: “Yes, it is true.”
From now on I will say new things to you,
things that I did not tell you before,
and things that you did not know.
7These are things that I will do now.
I have not done this before
and I have not told you about it.
You can not say that you
already know about these things.
8You have not heard about this
and you did not know about it.
I did not tell you about it before,
because I knew that you were unfaithful
and that you were always rebellious.
9But I stayed patient,
because my name is the Lord.
I did not cause you to die
because I want people to honour Me.
10People melt silver to make it pure,
and that is how I have melted you
in a furnace of suffering to purify you.
11I did it because I am the Lord.
I will not let something
that belongs to Me become impure.
I will not give the honour
that belongs to Me to someone else.
12Descendants of Jacob, people of Israel,
I have called you. You must listen to what I say.
I am the Lord. I am the first,
and I will also be the last.
13I put the earth in its place
and I made the expanse
above the earth and put it up like a tent.
I said the earth and expanse
must be there, and then they were there.
14Now you must all come together and listen.
Who said these things should happen?
It was not your gods who said that.
It was I, the Lord,
and I will send the man that I love.
He will do what I want him to do
with the city of Babylon and its people.
15It is I who spoke and who called that man.
I told him to come
and he will do what he has to do.
16You must come here and listen to what I say.
I have told you this from the beginning.
I was there before the beginning of time.’
You must come out of Babylon
The Lord sent me with the power of his Spirit.
17This is what the Lord says.
He is the holy God of Israel
who wants to save and free you.
He says: ‘I am the Lord your God
who teaches you to do what you must do.
I lead you on the road where you must go.
18If you had done what I told you to do,
then all would have been well with you.
Then everything would have been all right.
You would have had peace
like a river that flows
and you would have done
a lot of good things to other people,
as many as the waves of the sea.
19There would have been as many
of your descendants as the sand,
and when your enemies
came to kill you,
I would have stopped them.
20You must come out of the city of Babylon,
and you must flee.
You must rejoice and shout_loudly.
Shout so that all the people
on earth can hear you.
You must say: “The Lord has saved his servants,
the descendants of Jacob.
He has made them free.
21They did not become thirsty
when they walked through the desert.
The Lord gave them water from a rock.
He broke the rock open
and the water poured out.”
22But people who do what is wrong will suffer.’
This is what the Lord said.
