Isaiah 40–44

Chapter 40

Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.

²Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.

³The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.

⁴Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.

⁵And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.

⁶The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.

⁷The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:

⁸The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever.

⁹Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God:

¹⁰Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.

¹¹He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.

¹²Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

¹³Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?

¹⁴With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding?

¹⁵Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust.

¹⁶And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.

¹⁷All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity.

¹⁸To whom then have you likened God? or what image will you make for him?

¹⁹Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?

²⁰He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot: the skilful workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved.

²¹Do you not know? hath it not been heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood the foundations of the earth?

²²It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.

²³He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothing, that hath made the judges of the earth as vanity.

²⁴And surely their stock was neither planted, nor sown, nor rooted in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they are withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

²⁵And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the Holy One?

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things: who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by their names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one of them was missing.

²⁷Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

²⁸Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? the Lord is the everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom.

²⁹It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not.

³⁰Youths shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by infirmity.

³¹But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Chapter 41

Let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to judgment together.

²Who hath raised up the just one from the east, hath called him to follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall rule over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble driven by the wind, to his bow.

³He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path shall appear after his feet.

⁴Who hath wrought and done these things, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last.

⁵The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were astonished, they drew near, and came.

⁶Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to his brother: Be of good courage.

⁷The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged him that forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved.

⁸But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend:

⁹In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called thee, and said to thee: Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away.

¹⁰Fear not, for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I have strengthened thee, and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee.

¹¹Behold all that fight against thee shall be confounded and ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that strive against thee.

¹²Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find the men that resist thee: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war against thee.

¹³For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and say to thee: Fear not, I have helped thee.

¹⁴Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shalt thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt make the hills as chaff.

¹⁶Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful.

¹⁷The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers in the high hills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters.

¹⁹I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together:

²⁰That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.

²¹Bring your cause near, saith the Lord: bring hither, if you have any thing to allege, saith the King of Jacob.

²²Let them come, and tell us all things that are to come: tell us the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon them and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are to come.

²³Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us speak, and see together.

²⁴Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which hath no being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination.

²⁵I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay.

²⁶Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know: and from time of old, that we may say: Thou art just. There is none that sheweth, nor that foretelleth, nor that heareth your words.

²⁷The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist.

²⁸And I saw, and there was no one even among them to consult, or who, when I asked, could answer a word.

²⁹Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their idols are wind and vanity.

Chapter 42

Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him: I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

²He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall his voice be heard abroad.

³The bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

⁴He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he set judgment in the earth, and the islands shall wait for his law.

⁵Thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens, and stretched them out: that established the earth, and the things that spring out of it: that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that tread thereon.

⁶I the Lord have called thee in justice, and taken thee by the hand, and preserved thee. And I have given thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles:

⁷That thou mightest open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

⁸I the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven things.

⁹The things that were first, behold they are come: and new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I will make you hear them.

¹⁰Sing ye to the Lord a new song, his praise is from the ends of the earth: you that go down to the sea, and all that are therein: ye islands, and ye…