Isaiah 40-42

1“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.

2“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”

3A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain.

5And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.

7The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.

8The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”

9Go up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Raise your voice loudly, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”

10Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and His arm establishes His rule. His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him.

11He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads the nursing ewes.

12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on a scale and the hills with a balance?

13Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or informed Him as His counselor?

14Whom did He consult to enlighten Him, and who taught Him the paths of justice? Who imparted knowledge to Him and showed Him the way of understanding?

15Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered a speck of dust on the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust.

16Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering.

17All the nations are as nothing before Him; He regards them as nothingness and emptiness.

18To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him?

19To an idol that a craftsman casts and a metalworker overlays with gold and fits with silver chains?

20One lacking such an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple.

21Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the foundation of the earth?

22He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

23He brings the princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth meaningless.

24No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.

25“To whom will you liken Me, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One.

26Lift up your eyes on high: Who created all these? He leads forth the starry host by number; He calls each one by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

27Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”?

28Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out.

29He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak.

30Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.

31But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.

1“Be silent before Me, O islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come forward and testify; let us together draw near for judgment.

2Who has aroused one from the east and called him to his feet in righteousness? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow.

3He pursues them, going on safely, hardly touching the path with his feet.

4Who has performed this and carried it out, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD—the first and the last— I am He.”

5The islands see and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They approach and come forward.

6Each one helps the other and says to his brother, “Be strong!”

7The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who wields the hammer cheers him who strikes the anvil, saying of the welding, “It is good.” He nails it down so it will not be toppled.

8“But you, O Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham My friend—

9I brought you from the ends of the earth and called you from its farthest corners. I said, ‘You are My servant.’ I have chosen and not rejected you.

10Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

11Behold, all who rage against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with you will be reduced to nothing and will perish.

12You will seek them but will not find them. Those who wage war against you will come to nothing.

13For I am the LORD your God, who takes hold of your right hand and tells you: Do not fear, I will help you.

14Do not fear, O Jacob, you worm, O few men of Israel. I will help you,” declares the LORD. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

15Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.

16You will winnow them, and a wind will carry them away; a gale will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the LORD; you will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

17The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

18I will open rivers on the barren heights, and fountains in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water, and the dry land into flowing springs.

19I will plant cedars in the wilderness, acacias, myrtles, and olive trees. I will set cypresses in the desert, elms and boxwood together,

20so that all may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this and the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

21“Present your case,” says the LORD. “Submit your arguments,” says the King of Jacob.

22“Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell the former things, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome. Or announce to us what is coming.

23Tell us the things that are to come, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do something good or evil, that we may look on together in dismay.

24Behold, you are nothing and your work is of no value. Anyone who chooses you is detestable.

25I have raised up one from the north, and he has come— one from the east who calls on My name. He will march over rulers as if they were mortar, like a potter who treads the clay.

26Who has declared this from the beginning, so that we may know, and from times past, so that we may say: ‘He was right’? No one announced it, no one foretold it, no one heard your words.

27I was the first to tell Zion: ‘Look, here they are!’ And I gave to Jerusalem a herald of good news.

28When I look, there is no one; there is no counselor among them; when I ask them, they have nothing to say.

29See, they are all a delusion; their works amount to nothing; their images are as empty as the wind.

1“Here is My Servant, whom I uphold, My Chosen One, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will bring justice to the nations.

2He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the streets.

3A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice.

4He will not grow weak or discouraged before He has established justice on the earth. In His law the islands will put their hope.”

5This is what God the LORD says— He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and life to those who walk in it:

6“I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations,

7to open the eyes of the blind, to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those sitting in darkness out from the prison house.

8I am the LORD; that is My name! I will not yield My glory to another or My praise to idols.

9Behold, the former things have happened, and now I declare new things. Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

10Sing to the LORD a new song— His praise from the ends of the earth— you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who dwell in them.

11Let the desert and its cities raise their voices; let the villages of Kedar cry aloud. Let the people of Sela sing for joy; let them cry out from the mountaintops.

12Let them give glory to the LORD and declare His praise in the islands.

13The LORD goes forth like a mighty one; He stirs up His zeal like a warrior. He shouts; yes, He roars in triumph over His enemies:

14“I have kept silent from ages past; I have remained quiet and restrained. But now I will groan like a woman in labor; I will at once gasp and pant.

15I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will turn the rivers into dry land and drain the marshes.

16I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on unfamiliar paths. I will turn darkness into light before them and rough places into level ground. These things I will do for them, and I will not forsake them.

17But those who trust in idols and say to molten images, ‘You are our gods!’ will be turned back in utter shame.

18Listen, you deaf ones; look, you blind ones, that you may see!

19Who is blind but My servant, or deaf like the messenger I am sending? Who is blind like My covenant partner, or blind like the servant of the LORD?

20Though seeing many things, you do not keep watch. Though your ears are open, you do not hear.”

21The LORD was pleased, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify His law and make it glorious.

22But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”

23Who among you will pay attention to this? Who will listen and obey hereafter?

24Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned? They were unwilling to walk in His ways, and they would not obey His law.

25So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.