17 This is what the Lord says –your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:‘I am the Lord your God,who teaches you what is best for you,who directs you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had paid attention to my commands,your peace would have been like a river,your well-being like the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants would have been like the sand,your children like its numberless grains;their name would never be blotted outnor destroyed from before me.’
20 Leave Babylon,flee from the Babylonians!Announce this with shouts of joyand proclaim it.Send it out to the ends of the earth;say, ‘The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.’
21 They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;he made water flow for them from the rock;he split the rockand water gushed out.
22 ‘There is no peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked.’