I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’

To a nation

Which was not called by my name.

Who walk in a way which is not good,

After their own thoughts

³– A people who provoke me to anger to my face

All the time,

Sacrificing in the gardens

And burning incense on the bricks,

⁴Who live in sepulchres

And dwell in secret spaces,

Who eat pork,

And whose pans contain soup made from abominable things,

⁵Who say, ‘Keep yourself to yourself;

Do not approach me,

For I am holier than you.’

These things are smoke in my nose

– A fire burning all day long.

⁶Behold, it is written before me;

I will not be silent,

But I will repay,

And I will repay

Into their bosom.

⁷As for your iniquities,

And the iniquities of your fathers together,

Says the Lord

– Your fathers who burned incense on the mountains

And showed me contempt on the hills –

I will mete out their first undertaking

Into their bosom.”

⁸This is what the Lord says:

“As the new wine is found in the bunch of grapes,

And someone says,

‘Do not ruin it,

For there is a blessing in it’,

So I will do for the sake of my servants

So as not to bring all to ruin.

⁹And I will bring a seed out of Jacob,

And out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains,

And my chosen ones will inherit this,

And my servants will dwell there.

¹⁰And Sharon will be a pasture for sheep,

And the Valley of Achor a place for oxen to lie down

– For my people who have sought me.

¹¹But you are forsakers of the Lord,

Who forget my holy mountain,

Who prepare a table for Gad,

And who fill the vial with spiced wine

For Meni,

¹²So I will destine you for the sword,

And you will all stoop for slaughter,

Because I called,

But you did not answer;

I spoke,

But you did not listen,

And you did what is evil in my sight,

And you chose what I dislike.”

¹³Therefore this is what my Lord the Lord says:

“Behold, my servants will eat,

But you will hunger;

Behold, my servants will drink,

But you will thirst;

Behold, my servants will rejoice,

But you will be ashamed.

¹⁴Behold, my servants will be jubilant from a cheerful heart,

But you will cry out from a painful heart,

And you will wail from a broken spirit.

¹⁵And you will leave your name

As a curse to my chosen ones,

And my Lord the Lord will put you to death,

And he will call his servants by another name,

¹⁶So that he who is blessed on earth

Will be blessed by the God of truth,

And he who swears on earth

Will swear by the God of truth,

Because the former adversities will be forgotten,

And because they will be hidden from my eyes.

¹⁷For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,

And the former things will not be remembered,

And they will not arise in the heart.

¹⁸But rejoice and exult in all perpetuity

In what I am about to create,

For I am about to create Jerusalem

– A joy –

And her people will be a delight.

¹⁹And I will rejoice in Jerusalem

And exult in my people.

And the sound of weeping

And the sound of outcry

Will no longer be heard in it.

²⁰There will no longer be from there

A child a few days old,

Or an old man

Whose days are not fulfilled.

For a child will die at one hundred years old,

And a sinner aged one hundred years will be accursed.

²¹And they will build houses

And live in them,

And they will plant vineyards

And eat their fruit.

²²They will not build and another will live there;

They will not plant and another will eat,

For the days of my people

Will be like the days of a tree,

And my chosen ones

Will enjoy the work of their hands.

²³They will not toil in vain,

And they will not give birth in prospect of terror,

For they will be a seed blessed by the Lord,

As will their offspring with them.

²⁴And it will come to pass

That before they call out,

I will answer,

And while they are still speaking,

I will heed them.

²⁵The wolf and the lamb will feed together,

And the lion like the ox will eat straw,

But as for the serpent,

His food will be dust.

They will not do harm,

And they will not cause damage

Anywhere in my holy mountain”,

Says the Lord.

Reference(s) in Chapter 65: v.1 ↔ Romans 10:20 ● v.2 ↔ Romans 10:21 ● v.17 ↔ 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1.