8. Bring forth the blind people who have eyes and the deaf who have ears.
9. Let all the nations be gathered together and let the peoples be assembled. Who among [the idolaters] could predict this [that Cyrus would be the deliverer of Israel] and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear and acknowledge, It is the truth. [Ps. 123:3, 4.]
10. You are My witnesses, says the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know Me, believe Me and remain steadfast to Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me.
11. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no Savior.
12. I have declared [the future] and have saved [the nation in times of danger], and I have shown [that I am God]–when there was no strange and alien god among you; therefore you are My witnesses, says the Lord, that I am God.
13. Yes, from the time of the first existence of day and from this day forth I am He; and there is no one who can deliver out of My hand. I will work, and who can hinder or reverse it?
14. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent [one] to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, [with] all their nobles, even the Chaldeans, into the ships over which they rejoiced.
15. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.
16. Thus says the Lord, Who makes a way through the sea and a path through the mighty waters,
17. Who brings forth chariot and horse, army and mighty warrior. They lie down together, they cannot rise; they are extinguished, they are quenched like a lampwick:
18. Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old.
19. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
20. The beasts of the field honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen, [Isa. 41:17, 18; 48:21.]
21. The people I formed for Myself, that they may set forth My praise [and they shall do it].
22. Yet you have not called upon Me [much less toiled for Me], O Jacob; but you have been weary of Me, O Israel!