Isaiah 26

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

26In that day ^ethis song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;

he sets up ^fsalvation

as walls and bulwarks.

^2gOpen the gates,

that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

^3hYou keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

⁵ⁱFor he has humbled

the inhabitants of the height,

the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

⁶The foot tramples it,

the feet of ^jthe poor,

the steps of ^jthe needy.”

⁷The path of the righteous is level;

^kyou make level the way of the righteous.

⁸In the path of your judgments,

O Lord, we wait for you;

^lyour name and ^lremembrance

are the desire of our soul.

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night;

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

^mFor when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰ⁿIf favor is shown to the wicked,

he does not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

and does not see the majesty of the Lord.

¹¹O Lord, ^oyour hand is lifted up,

but ^pthey do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let ^qthe fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O Lord, you will ordain ^rpeace for us,

for you have indeed done for us all our works.

¹³O Lord our God,

^sother lords besides you have ruled over us,

^tbut your name alone we bring to remembrance.

¹⁴They are dead, they will not live;

they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction

and wiped out all remembrance of them.

^15uBut you have increased the nation, O Lord,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

^vyou have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶O Lord, ^win distress they sought you;

they poured out a whispered prayer

when your discipline was upon them.

^17xLike a pregnant woman

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near to giving birth,

so were we because of you, O Lord;

^18xwe were pregnant, we writhed,

but we have given birth to wind.

We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

^19yYour dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For ^zyour dew is a dew of light,

and the earth will give birth to the dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves ^afor a little while

until the fury has passed by.

^21bFor behold, the Lord is coming out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of ^cthe earth for their iniquity,

and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no more cover its slain.