18. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness into a pool of water, and the dry land into water-springs.
19. I will give in the wilderness the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oleaster; I will set in the desert the cypress, pine, and box-tree together;
20. that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
21. Produce your cause, saith Jehovah; bring forward your arguments, saith the King of Jacob.
22. Let them bring them forward, and declare to us what shall happen: shew the former things, what they are, that we may give attention to them, and know the end of them; --or let us hear things to come:
23. declare the things that are to happen hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods; yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be astonished, and behold it together.
24. Behold, ye are less than nothing, and your work is of nought; an abomination is he that chooseth you. ...
25. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come, --from the rising of the sun, he who will call upon my name; and he shall come upon princes as on mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay.
26. Who hath declared it from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, It is right? Indeed, there is none that declareth; no, none that sheweth; no, none that heareth your words.
27. The first, I said to Zion, Behold, behold them! and to Jerusalem, I will give one that bringeth glad tidings.
28. And I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, --and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
29. Behold, they are all vanity, their works are nought, their molten images are wind and emptiness.