God Knows Best

¹² Listen to me, Jacob; Israel, whom I called: I am the one; I am the first and I am the last. ¹³ My hand founded the earth; my strong hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they all stand up. ¹⁴ Gather yourselves, all of you, and listen. Who among you announced these things? “The LORD loves him. He will do what God wants with Babylon and with the descendants of Chaldea.” ¹⁵ I, I have spoken and told him the things that will happen to him; I will make him succeed. ¹⁶ Come close to me; listen to this: Since the very beginning I haven’t spoken in secret. Whenever anything happens, I am there. (And now the LORD God has sent me with his spirit.) ¹⁷ The LORD your redeemer, the holy one of Israel, proclaims: I am the LORD your God who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go. ¹⁸ If you would pay attention to my commands, your well-being would be like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. ¹⁹ Your offspring would be like the sand, and your descendants like its grains. Their name would never be eliminated, never wiped out from before me.