21 “Present your legal case,” says Yahweh.

“Bring your evidence,” says the king of Jacob.

22 Let them bring them,

and let them tell us what will happen.

Tell us what the former things are

⌊so that⌋q we may take them to our heart

and know their outcome.r

Declare to us the things to come;

23 tell us the things coming ⌊hereafter⌋,s

thatt we may know that you are gods.

Indeed, do good oru do evil,

thatv we may be afraid and seew together.

24 Look! you are nothing,

and your work is something worthless;

whoever chooses you is an abomination.

25 I stirred up one from the north,

and he has come from the rising of the sun.

He shall call on my name,

and he shall come on officials as on mortar,

and as the ⌊potter⌋x treads clay.

26 Who declared it from the ⌊beginning⌋y ⌊so that⌋z we might know,

and ⌊beforehand⌋a ⌊so that⌋b we might say, “He is ⌊right⌋!”c

Indeed, there was no one who declared it;

Indeed, there was no one who proclaimed it.

Indeed there was no one who heard your words.

27 First to Zion, look! Look at them!

And I give a heraldd of good tidings to Jerusalem.

28 Bute I look and there is no man,

and I look among these and there is no counselor,

thatf I might ask them and they might answer a word.

29 Look! All of them are deception;

their works are nothing;

their images are wind and emptiness.

The Mission of Yahweh’s Servant

42 Look! here is my servant; I hold him,

my chosen one, in whom my soul delights.

I have ⌊put⌋a my spirit on him;

he will bring justice forth to the nations.

2 He will not cry out and lift up

and make his voice heard in the street.

3 He will not break a broken reed,

and he will not extinguish a dim wick.

He will bring justice forth inb faithfulness.

4 He will not grow faint,

and he will not be broken

until he has established justice in the earth.

And the coastlands wait for his teaching.

5 Thus says the God, Yahweh,

who created the heavens

and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and its offspring,

who gives breath to the people upon it

and spirit to those who walk in it.

6 “I am Yahweh; I have called you in righteousness,

and I have grasped your hand and watched over you;

and I have given you as a covenant of the people,

as a light of the nations,

7 to open the blind eyes,

to bring the prisoner out from the dungeon,

those who sit in darkness from the house of imprisonment.

8 I am Yahweh; that is my name,

and I do not give my glory to another,

norc my praise to the idols.

9 Look! the former things have come,

and I declare new things.

I ⌊announce⌋d them to you before they sprout up.”