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Yahweh responds to the preceding lament by reciting his overtures to his people and their blatant rebellion (vv.1-7). Yahweh will act to deliver Israel but with discrimination, bringing salvation to those who respond in faithfulness, and judgment to those who continue in evil doing (vv.8-16). The prophet concludes this section with an eschatological vision (vv.17-25).
In vv.1-7 the prophet thinks it ironic that Israel pleads with God (the previous lament) to come, when God had faithfully and persistently made himself available to Israel and had been met only with rejection and the provocation of idolatrous worship. V.4 refers to the forbidden rituals of communicating with the dead. The eating of unclean meat was an act of open rebellion. Note in these verses the emphasis on cultic impurity and disobedience.
In vv.8-16 we see the early stages of the sheep and goats motif, i.e., the distinction between the faithful and unfaithful within Israel. Previously the people of Judah had been viewed largely as a whole, but here and increasingly in subsequent postexilic literature is a delineation of those who are true and those who are not. V.8 was probably a well-known parable, which sets the tone for the passage. God will act to save his people for the sake of his faithful servants (vv.8-10), but those who forsake Yahweh will be destroyed (vv.11-16). The faithful servants will enter the new era as symbolized by the receiving of new names (v.15; cf. the comment on 62:12).
Contemplation of the fate of the faithful servants lifts the prophet to yet another visionary height as he seems to gather many of the previous joyous images in the Isaianic corpus (2:2-4; 4:2-6; 9:2-7; 25:6-9; 32:15-20; 35:1-10; 41:17-20) to limn his view of the future eschatological age. God’s new activity will be on a scale similar to that of the first acts of creation. The former things, i.e., the disaster, despair, and dismay, will not be remembered. The messianic vision of ch. 11 will come to pass (v.25).