Isaiah 40-43

Common English Bible

40 Comfort, comfort my people!
    says your God.
² Speak compassionately to Jerusalem,
        and proclaim to her that her compulsory service has ended,
    that her penalty has been paid,
    that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins!

¹² Who has measured the waters in the palm of a hand
    or gauged the heavens with a ruler
    or scooped the earth’s dust up in a measuring cup
    or weighed the mountains on a scale
    and the hills in a balance?
¹³ Who directed the Lord’s spirit
    and acted as God’s advisor?
¹⁴ Whom did he consult for enlightenment?
    Who taught him the path of justice and knowledge
    and explained to him the way of understanding?
¹⁵ Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket,
    and valued as dust on a scale.
    Look, God weighs the islands like fine dust.
¹⁶ Lebanon doesn’t have enough fuel;
    its animals aren’t enough for an entirely burned offering.
¹⁷ All the nations are like nothing before God.
    They are viewed as less than nothing and emptiness.

²⁶ Look up at the sky and consider:
    Who created these?
    The one who brings out their attendants one by one,
    summoning each of them by name.
Because of God’s great strength
    and mighty power, not one is missing.
²⁷ Why do you say, Jacob,
    and declare, Israel,
    “My way is hidden from the Lord,
    my God ignores my predicament”?
²⁸ Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
    The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the creator of the ends of the earth.
    He doesn’t grow tired or weary.
His understanding is beyond human reach,
²⁹     giving power to the tired
    and reviving the exhausted.
³⁰ Youths will become tired and weary,
    young men will certainly stumble;
³¹     but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength;
    they will fly up on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not be tired;
    they will walk and not be weary.

41 Be quiet before me, coastlands.
    Let the nations renew their strength.
    Let them approach and speak.
    Let’s draw near for a judgment.
² Who has awakened one from the east
    and has authority to summon him to serve—
    giving him nations,
    conquering kings,
    making them like dust with his sword,
    like scattered straw with his bow?
³ He pursues them and passes untouched,
    needing no path for his feet.
⁴ Who has acted and who has done this,
    calling upon generation after generation since the beginning?
        I, the Lord, was first,
        and I will be the last!

⁸ But you, Israel my servant,
    Jacob, whom I have chosen,
    offspring of Abraham, whom I love,
⁹     you whom I took from the ends of the earth
        and called from its farthest corners,
    saying to you, “You are my servant;
    I chose you and didn’t reject you”:
¹⁰     Don’t fear, because I am with you;
    don’t be afraid, for I am your God.
    I will strengthen you,
    I will surely help you;
    I will hold you
    with my righteous strong hand.
¹¹ All who rage against you will be shamed and disgraced.
    Those who contend with you
    will be as nothing and will perish.
¹² You will look for your opponents,
    and won’t find them.
    Those who fight you will be of no account and will die.
¹³ I am the Lord your God,
    who grasps your strong hand,
    who says to you,
    Don’t fear; I will help you.
¹⁴ Don’t fear, worm of Jacob,
    people of Israel!
I will help you, says the Lord.
    The holy one of Israel is your redeemer.
¹⁵ Look, I’ve made you
    into a new threshing tool with sharp teeth.
You will thresh mountains and pulverize them;
    you will reduce hills to straw.
¹⁶ When you winnow them,
    the wind will carry them off;
    the tempest will scatter them.
You will rejoice in the Lord
    and take pride in the holy one of Israel.

²¹ Present your case, says the Lord.
    Bring forward your evidence, says Jacob’s king.
²² Let the idols^[c] approach
    and tell us what will happen.
The prior things—what are they?
    Announce them, and we’ll think about them
    and know their significance.
    Or proclaim to us what is to come!
²³ Report things that will happen in the future,
    then we’ll know that you are gods.
Do good! Or do bad!
    Then we will all be afraid and fearful.
²⁴ Look! You are nobody, and your deeds are nothing.
    Whoever chooses you is disgusting.
²⁵ I woke up one from the north and he came;
    from the east, one who calls my name.
He tramples governors like mud,
    as a potter treads clay.
²⁶ Who announced this from the start
        so that we would know;
    from an earlier time
        so we would say, “That’s right”?
Truly, no one announced it,
    no one proclaimed it,
    and no one heard your words.
²⁷ I first said it to Zion, “Look, here they are”;
    to Jerusalem I now send a herald.
²⁸ But I look, and there’s no one
    among them, no counselor;
    and when I ask,
    no one can answer.
²⁹ Look, all of them are frauds;
    their deeds amount to nothing;
    their images are a total delusion.

42 But here is my servant, the one I uphold;
    my chosen, who brings me delight.
I’ve put my spirit upon him;
    he will bring justice to the nations.
² He won’t cry out or shout aloud
    or make his voice heard in public.
³ He won’t break a bruised reed;
    he won’t extinguish a faint wick,
    but he will surely bring justice.
⁴ He won’t be extinguished or broken
    until he has established justice in the land.
The coastlands await his teaching.

¹⁰ Sing to the Lord a new song!
    Sing his praise from the ends of the earth!
You who sail the sea and all that fills it,
    the coastlands and their residents.
¹¹ Let the desert and its towns shout aloud,
    the villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the cliff dwellers sing;
    from the top of the mountains let them shout.
¹² Let them give the Lord glory
    and declare God’s praise in the coastlands.
¹³ The Lord will go out like a soldier;
    like a warrior God will stir up rage.
God will shout, will roar;
    over enemies he will prevail.
¹⁴ I’ve kept still for a very long time.
    I’ve been silent and restrained myself.
Like a woman in labor I will moan;
    I will pant, I will gasp.
¹⁵ I will wither mountains and valleys,
    and I will dry up all their vegetation.
I will turn rivers into deserts,^[d]
    and I will dry up pools.
¹⁶ I will make the blind walk a road they don’t know,
    and I will guide them in paths they don’t know.
But I will make darkness before them into light
    and rough places into level ground.
These things I will do;
    I won’t abandon them.

¹⁷ Turned backward, utterly shamed
    are those who trust in idols,
    who say to a cast image,
    “You are our god!”
¹⁸ Hear, deaf ones,
    and blind ones, look and see!
¹⁹ Who is blind if not my servant
    and deaf like my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind like the restored one,^[e]
    blind like the servant of the Lord?
²⁰ You have seen many things, but don’t keep watch.
    With ears open, you don’t hear.^[f]
21 The Lord desired for the sake of his righteousness
    to expand and glorify the Instruction.
²² But this is a people plundered and looted,
    everyone trapped in holes and hidden in dungeons.
They have become plunder with no one to rescue,
    loot with no one to say, “Give it back.”

43 But now, says the Lord—
the one who created you, Jacob,
    the one who formed you, Israel:
Don’t fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have called you by name; you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
    when through the rivers, they won’t sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you won’t be scorched
    and flame won’t burn you.
³ I am the Lord your God,
    the holy one of Israel, your savior.
I have given Egypt as your ransom,
    Cush and Seba in your place.
⁴ Because you are precious in my eyes,
    you are honored, and I love you.
    I give people in your place,
        and nations in exchange for your life.
⁵ Don’t fear,
    I am with you.
From the east I’ll bring your children;
    from the west I’ll gather you.
⁶ I’ll say to the north, “Give them back!”
    and to the south, “Don’t detain them.”
Bring my sons from far away,
    and my daughters from the end of the earth,
⁷     everyone who is called by my name
    and whom I created for my glory,
    whom I have formed and made.

¹⁴ The Lord your redeemer,
    the holy one of Israel, says,
For your sake, I have sent an army^[g] to Babylon,
    and brought down all the bars,
    turning the Chaldeans’ singing into a lament.^[h]
15 I am the Lord, your holy one,
    Israel’s creator, your king!
¹⁶ The Lord says—who makes a way in the sea
    and a path in the mighty waters,
¹⁷     who brings out chariot and horse,
    army and battalion;
    they will lie down together and will not rise;
    they will be extinguished, extinguished like a wick.
¹⁸ Don’t remember the prior things;
    don’t ponder ancient history.
¹⁹ Look! I’m doing a new thing;
    now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it?
I’m making a way in the desert,
    paths^[i] in the wilderness.
²⁰ The beasts of the field,
        the jackals and ostriches, will honor me,
    because I have put water in the desert
    and streams in the wilderness
    to give water to my people,
    my chosen ones,
²¹     this people whom I formed for myself,
        who will recount my praise.