Who among you will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?
Parallel translations
- WEB Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?
- KJV Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
- BSB Who among you will pay attention to this? Who will listen and obey hereafter?
- NASB ¶Who among you will listen to this? Who will pay attention and listen in the time to come?
- NLT Who will hear these lessons from the past and see the ruin that awaits you in the future?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God asks who among His people will finally listen and take heed for the future. It is an appeal for genuine attention before further judgment falls.
Overview
The rhetorical question presses the hearers to learn from their plight and turn to God. True wisdom lies in heeding the LORD's word about what is to come. This invitation to listen looks forward to the gospel call to hear and believe Christ, in whom the future is secure.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Acts 3:22–23For Moses indeed said to the fathers, ‘The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in all things whatever he says to you.
- Isa 48:18Oh that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
- Jer 3:4–7Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?’
- Deut 4:29–31But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
- Deut 32:29Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
- Prov 1:22–23“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?
- Isa 1:18–20“Come now, and let us reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
- Mic 6:9Yahweh’s voice calls to the city, and wisdom sees your name: “Listen to the rod, and he who appointed it.
- Acts 3:19“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,
- Matt 21:28–31But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’
- Lev 26:40–42“‘If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,
- 1 Pet 4:2–3that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
- Jer 3:13Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’ says Yahweh.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 42:23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.