16. Approach Me and listen to this.From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time anything existed, I was there.”And now the Lord Godhas sent me and His Spirit.
17. This is what the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says:I am Yahweh your God,who teaches you for your benefit,who leads you in the way you should go.
18. If only you had paid attention to My commands.Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
19. Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand, and the offspring of your body like its grains; their name would not be cut offor eliminated from My presence.
20. Leave Babylon,flee from the Chaldeans!Declare with a shout of joy,proclaim this,let it go out to the end of the earth;announce,“The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob! ”
21. They did not thirstwhen 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 for the wicked,” says the Lord.