Do not fear or be troubled. Did I not announce it to you long ago? I declared it, and you are my witnesses. Is there any God but me? There is no other Rock, I know of none!
But his father refused. “I know it, son,” he said, “I know. That one too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall surpass him, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.”
“Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: ‘All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
For I was ashamed to ask the king for troops and horsemen to protect us against enemies along the way, since we had said to the king, “The favoring hand of our God is over all who seek him, but his fierce anger is against all who forsake him.”
Truly, you have forgotten the God who saves you, the Rock, your refuge, you have not remembered. Therefore, though you plant plants for the Pleasant One, and set out cuttings for a foreign one,
For you, there will be singing as on a night when a feast is observed, And joy of heart as when one marches along with a flute Going to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.
You are my witnesses—oracle of the Lord— my servant whom I have chosen To know and believe in me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none.
Let all the nations gather together, let the peoples assemble! Who among them could have declared this, or announced to us the earlier things? Let them produce witnesses to prove themselves right, that one may hear and say, “It is true!”
I have not spoken in secret from some place in the land of darkness, I have not said to the descendants of Jacob, “Look for me in an empty waste.” I, the Lord, promise justice, I declare what is right.
I declared them to you of old; before they took place I informed you, That you might not say, “My idol did them, my statue, my molten image commanded them.”
Who would not fear you, King of the nations, for it is your due! Among all the wisest of the nations, and in all their domains, there is none like you.
But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what is to happen in the last days; this was your dream, the visions you saw as you lay in bed.
To Daniel the king said, “Truly your God is the God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries; that is why you were able to reveal this mystery.”
But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
“Men, why are you doing this? We are of the same nature as you, human beings. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, ‘who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.’
See now that I, I alone, am he, and there is no god besides me. It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them, and from my hand no one can deliver.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us
for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us—