Isaiah 43

³Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

⁷everyone called by My name and created for My glory, whom I have indeed formed and made.”

⁹This third I will bring through the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”

⁴Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame; do not be intimidated, for you will not be humiliated. For you will forget the shame of your youth and will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

⁵For your husband is your Maker—the Lord of Hosts is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth.

¹⁴He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

⁹And they sang a new song: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

¹⁰Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

⁹Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

¹²You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us into abundance.

⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

²⁵“Look!” he exclaimed. “I see four men, unbound and unharmed, walking around in the fire—and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!”

²⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the blazing fiery furnace and called out, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire,

⁹But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.

¹⁰That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

¹⁶You will drink the milk of nations and nurse at the breasts of royalty; you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

¹⁵Truly You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.

²⁶I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

²“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁹Then Zerah the Cushite came against them with an army of 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots, and they advanced as far as Mareshah.

¹⁰So Asa marched out against him and lined up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.

¹⁸The wicked become a ransom for the righteous, and the faithless for the upright.

⁶For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

⁷The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

³The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving devotion.

⁹As for those who belong to the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews but are liars instead, I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and they will know that I love you.

²I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

¹When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.

³then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the Lord your God has scattered you.

²⁹People will come from east and west and north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.

¹²Behold, they will come from far away, from the north and from the west, and from the land of Aswan.”

²⁵Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Now I will restore Jacob from captivity and will have compassion on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for My holy name.

²⁶They will forget their disgrace and all the treachery they committed against Me, when they dwell securely in their land, with no one to frighten them.

¹Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

²For behold, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples; but the Lord will rise upon you, and His glory will appear over you.

²This is the word of the Lord, your Maker, who formed you from the womb and who will help you: “Do not be afraid, O Jacob My servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

¹⁷“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

¹⁸And: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

¹⁴“Return, O faithless children,” declares the Lord, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion.

¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance.

¹⁹Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.

¹⁰Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

¹¹Then the people of Judah and of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and will go up out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel.

⁷Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”

⁸So it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring.

²⁶You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

²⁷For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

²¹The people I formed for Myself will declare My praise.

¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be for the praise of His glory.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

²³What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory—

²Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.

³You will be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the palm of your God.

⁹And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’

²“Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

¹⁸Listen, you deaf ones; look, you blind ones, that you may see!

¹⁹Who is blind but My servant, or deaf like the messenger I am sending? Who is blind like My covenant partner, or blind like the servant of the Lord?

²Moses summoned all Israel and proclaimed to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land.

³You saw with your own eyes the great trials, and those miraculous signs and wonders.

⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

⁵For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

²¹“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

⁷Who then is like Me? Let him say so! Let him declare his case before Me, since I established an ancient people. Let him foretell the things to come, and what is to take place.

⁸Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”

²¹“Present your case,” says the Lord. “Submit your arguments,” says the King of Jacob.

²²“Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell the former things, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome. Or announce to us what is coming.

¹“Be silent before Me, O islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come forward and testify; let us together draw near for judgment.

¹A Psalm of Asaph. The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from where the sun rises to where it sets.

¹¹Come quickly, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves. Bring down Your mighty ones, O Lord.

⁴Who has performed this and carried it out, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord—the first and the last—I am He.”

⁶so that all may know, from where the sun rises to where it sets, that there is none but Me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.

⁸Remember this and be brave; take it to heart, you transgressors!

⁹Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.

¹²I alone decreed and saved and proclaimed—I, and not some foreign god among you. So you are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.

²¹Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the foundation of the earth?

²²He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

⁴Yet I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but Me, for there is no Savior besides Me.

⁶Thus says the Lord, the King and Redeemer of Israel, the Lord of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me.

³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place.

²¹Speak up and present your case—yes, let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago? Who announced it from ancient times? Was it not I, the Lord? There is no other God but Me, a righteous God and Savior; there is none but Me.

²²Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.

¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God,

¹²Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

¹²The Lord alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.

⁸Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”

⁹There must be no strange god among you, nor shall you bow to a foreign god.

¹⁰I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.

¹⁰“You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may consider and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, and after Me none will come.

⁹Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

²⁷The Lord of Hosts has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is outstretched, so who can turn it back?

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

²Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.

⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

⁵⁸“Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and was and is to come—the Almighty.

⁶Thus says the Lord, the King and Redeemer of Israel, the Lord of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me.

²⁴Before your very eyes I will repay Babylon and all the dwellers of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion,” declares the Lord.

¹³Look at the land of the Chaldeans—a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.

²⁴Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by Myself spread out the earth,

¹¹And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because there is no one left to buy their cargo—

¹²cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; of fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; of all kinds of citron wood and every article of ivory, precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble;

²⁹All who handle the oars will abandon their ships. The sailors and all the captains of the sea will stand on the shore.

³⁰They will raise their voices for you and cry out bitterly. They will throw dust on their heads and roll in ashes.

¹But now, this is what the Lord says—He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine!

¹⁷Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your benefit, who directs you in the way you should go.

⁷To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the One who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.

⁵For Israel and Judah have not been abandoned by their God, the Lord of Hosts, though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.”

¹²Yet God is my King from ancient times, working salvation on the earth.

³⁴Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

¹⁰Was it not You who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea for the redeemed to cross over?

²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.

¹⁹Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, but Your footprints were not to be found.

³⁵Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of Hosts is His name:

⁹He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; He led them through the depths as through a desert.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

³¹The strong man will become tinder and his work will be a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the flames.

⁴And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them. But I will gain honor by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So this is what the Israelites did.

⁵When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have released Israel from serving us.”

¹²They swarmed around me like bees, but they were extinguished like burning thorns; in the name of the Lord I cut them off.

⁸and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore.

⁹And they marched across the broad expanse of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

⁵The valiant lie plundered; they sleep their last sleep. No men of might could lift a hand.

⁶At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both horse and rider lie stunned.

⁸After a long time you will be summoned. In the latter years you will enter a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and all now dwell securely.

⁹You and all your troops, and many peoples with you will go up, advancing like a thunderstorm; you will be like a cloud covering the land.

¹⁷For behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

¹⁰Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it.

¹²Remember the wonders He has done, His marvels, and the judgments He has pronounced,

²Remember that these forty years the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

¹⁴Yet behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of Egypt.’

¹⁵Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their forefathers.

⁹Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.

⁶You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not acknowledge them? From now on I will tell you of new things, hidden things unknown to you.

⁹Behold, the former things have happened, and now I declare new things. Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

¹⁷Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!

⁵And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are faithful and true.”

¹⁸I will open rivers on the barren heights, and fountains in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water, and the dry land into flowing springs.

⁴as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.

⁵Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill made low. The crooked ways shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth.

¹⁷The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the Lord, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

²¹They 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.

¹⁰They will not hunger or thirst, nor will scorching heat or sun beat down on them. For He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

¹⁴They will make war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will triumph over them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and He will be accompanied by His called and chosen and faithful ones.”

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

²²Hyenas will howl in her fortresses and jackals in her luxurious palaces. Babylon’s time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

¹⁵Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.

¹⁸Let this be written for the generation to come, so that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.

¹⁹Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

²⁰you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.

⁷⁴deliverance from hostile hands, that we may serve Him without fear,

⁷⁵in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.

³¹So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

³‘My people, what have I done to you? Testify against Me how I have wearied you!

¹⁴You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?

¹³You also say: ‘Oh, what a nuisance!’ And you turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord of Hosts. “You bring offerings that are stolen, lame, or sick! Should I accept these from your hands?” asks the Lord.

²⁵Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

²You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.

³And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.

¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

¹²Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the Lord.

²⁵Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

⁵“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

⁶And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?

⁶“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of Me?” says the Lord of Hosts to you priests who despise My name. “But you ask, ‘How have we despised Your name?’

⁷By presenting defiled food on My altar. But you ask, ‘How have we defiled You?’ By saying that the table of the Lord is contemptible.

¹“When anyone brings a grain offering to the Lord, his offering must consist of fine flour. He is to pour olive oil on it, put frankincense on it,

²²For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices,

²⁷The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable—how much more so when brought with ill intent!

¹³Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God as well?

²⁰What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please Me.”

¹⁴I hate your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.

⁹Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.

¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

¹³And this is another thing you do: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and groaning, because He no longer regards your offerings or receives them gladly from your hands.

¹⁴Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

¹²For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

¹⁷Then He adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”

³⁴No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

¹⁸“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.

²²I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

¹⁸“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.

⁹All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and proclaim to us the former things? Let them present their witnesses to vindicate them, so that others may hear and say, “It is true.”

³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

²May my prayer be set before You like incense; my uplifted hands, like the evening offering.

²¹I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?

²²Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord God.

¹“Be silent before Me, O islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come forward and testify; let us together draw near for judgment.

³¹The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?

⁷These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.

³and tell her that this is what the Lord God says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

²⁵The conspiracy of the princes in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing its prey. They devour the people, seize the treasures and precious things, and multiply the widows within her.

²⁶Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they fail to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

¹³But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

¹⁴They wandered blind in the streets, defiled by this blood, so that no one dared to touch their garments.

⁷Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Hosts. “But you ask, ‘How can we return?’

⁹I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

¹⁵You will leave behind your name as a curse for My chosen ones, and the Lord God will slay you; but to His servants He will give another name.

¹³As you have been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid; let your hands be strong.”

¹⁵If, however, you do not obey the Lord your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹⁶hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them.

⁶I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.