Isaiah 41–64

God Helps Israel

41Listen to me in silence, coastlands,

and let nations renew their strength.

Let them approach, then let them speak;

let us draw near together for judgment.

²Who has roused salvation from the east,

summoned^a him to his foot,

gives nations in his presence,^b

and subjugates kings?

He makes^c them like the dust with his sword,

like scattered stubble with his bow.

³He pursues them and passes on in peace;

he does not enter the path with his feet.

⁴Who has accomplished and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?^d

I, Yahweh, am first;

and I am the one with the last.

⁵The coastlands have seen and are afraid;

the ends of the earth tremble.

They have drawn near,

and they have come.

⁶Each one helps^e his neighbor;

he says to his brother, “Take courage!”

⁷And the artisan encourages the goldsmith,^f

the one who makes smooth with the hammer encourages the one who strikes the anvil,

saying of the soldering, “It is good!”

And they strengthen it with nails so it cannot be knocked over.

⁸But^g you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen,

you, the offspring^h of Abraham my friend,ⁱ

⁹you whom I grasped from the ends of the earth

and called from its remotest parts

and told, “You are my servant;

I have chosen you and I have not rejected you.”

¹⁰You must not fear, for I am with you;

you must not be afraid, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you, indeed I will help you,

indeed I will take hold of you with the right hand of my salvation.

¹¹Look! All those who are angry with you shall be ashamed and humiliated;

your opponents^j shall be like nothing and shall become lost.

¹²You shall seek them,

but^k you shall not find them;

your opponents^l shall be like nothing,

and the men of your war like nothing.

¹³For I, Yahweh your God, am grasping your right hand;

it is I who say^m to you,

“You must not fear;

I myself, I will help you.

¹⁴You must not fear, O worm of Jacob;

people of Israel,

I myself, I will help you,” declaresⁿ Yahweh,

“and your redeemer is the holy one of Israel.

¹⁵Look! I will make you into a new sharp threshing sledge,

with^o sharp edges.

You shall thresh and crush the mountains,

and you shall make the hills like chaff.

¹⁶You shall winnow them and the wind shall carry them,

and the tempest shall scatter them.

And you yourself shall rejoice in Yahweh;

you shall boast in the holy one of Israel.

¹⁷The poor and the needy are seeking water and there is none;

their tongue is dried up with thirst.

I, Yahweh, will answer them;

I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers on the barren heights

and fountains in the midst of the valleys.

I will make the wilderness like a pool of water

and the land of dryness like springs of water.

¹⁹I will put^p the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive oil tree in the wilderness;

I will set the cypress, elm, and box tree together in the desert

²⁰so that they may see and know,

and take to heart and understand together

that the hand of Yahweh has done this,

and the holy one of Israel has created it.”

²¹“Present your legal case,” says Yahweh.

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

²²Let 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;

²³tell us the things coming hereafter,^s

that^t we may know that you are gods.

Indeed, do good or^u do evil,

that^v we may be afraid and see^w together.

²⁴Look! you are nothing,

and your work is something worthless;

whoever chooses you is an abomination.

²⁵I 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.

²⁶Who 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.

²⁷First to Zion, look! Look at them!

And I give a herald^d of good tidings to Jerusalem.

²⁸But^e I look and there is no man,

and I look among these and there is no counselor,

that^f I might ask them and they might answer a word.

²⁹Look! All of them are deception;

their works are nothing;

their images are wind and emptiness.

The Mission of Yahweh’s Servant

42Look! 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.

²He will not cry out and lift up

and make his voice heard in the street.

³He will not break a broken reed,

and he will not extinguish a dim wick.

He will bring justice forth in^b faithfulness.

⁴He 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.

⁵Thus 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,

⁷to open the blind eyes,

to bring the prisoner out from the dungeon,

those who sit in darkness from the house of imprisonment.

⁸I am Yahweh; that is my name,

and I do not give my glory to another,

nor^c my praise to the idols.

⁹Look! the former things have come,

and I declare new things.

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

A Song of Praise to Yahweh

¹⁰Sing a new song to Yahweh;

praise him from the end of the earth,

you^e who go down to the sea and that which fills it,

the coastlands and their inhabitants.

¹¹Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice,

the villages that Kedar inhabits.

Let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy;

let them shout loudly from the top^f of the mountains.

¹²Let them give^g glory to Yahweh

and declare his praise in the coastlands.

¹³Yahweh goes forth like a mighty warrior;

he stirs up zeal like a man of war.

He raises the war cry, indeed he raises the battle shout;

he prevails against his foes.

¹⁴I have been silent for a long time;

I have kept silent;

I have restrained myself like one giving birth;

I will moan, pant, and gasp together.

¹⁵I will cause mountains and hills to dry up,

and I will cause all their herbage to wither;

and I will make rivers like islands,

and I will cause pools to dry up.

¹⁶And I will lead the blind by a road they do not know;

I will cause them to tread on paths they have not known.

I will make darkness in their presence^h into light

and rough places into level ground.

These are the things I will do,

and I will not forsake them.

¹⁷They shall turn back;

they shall be greatly ashamed,ⁱ

those who trust in an image,

who say to a cast image, “You are our gods.”

Blind and Deaf Israel

¹⁸Deaf people, listen!

And blind people, look to see!

¹⁹Who is blind but my servant

or^j deaf like my messenger whom I sent?

Who is blind like the one who is repaid

or^k blind like the servant of Yahweh?

²⁰You see many things, but^l you do not observe.

His ears are open, but^m he does not hear.

²¹Yahweh was willing for the sake of his righteousness;

he showed his teaching to be great and proved it to be glorious.

²²Butⁿ this is a people plundered and looted; all of them are trapped in holes,

and they are kept hidden in houses of imprisonment.

They have become like plunder, and there is no one who saves;

like booty, and there is no one who says, “Restore!”

²³Who among you will heed this,

will listen attentively and listen, for the time to come?^o

²⁴Who gave Jacob to a plunderer^p

and Israel to those who plunder?

Was it not Yahweh, against whom^q we have sinned?

And they were not willing to walk in his ways,

and they would not obey^r his law.

²⁵So^s he poured the wrath of his anger upon him

and the strength of war.

And it set him afire all around, but^t he did not understand;^u

and it burned him, but^v he did not take it to heart.

The Restorer of Israel

43But now thus says Yahweh,

he who created you, Jacob,

and he who formed you, Israel:

“You must not fear, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by your name; you are mine.^a

²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,

and through the rivers, they shall not flow over you.

When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not scorch^b you.

³For I am Yahweh, your God,

the holy one of Israel, your savior.

I give you Egypt as ransom,

Cush and Seba in place of you.

⁴Because you are precious in my eyes,

you are honored, and I myself love you,

and I give people in place of you,

and nations in place of your life.

⁵You must not fear,

for I am with you.

I will bring your offspring^c from the east,

and I will gather you from the west.

⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give!’

and to the south, ‘You must not withhold!’

Bring my sons from far away,

and my daughters from the end of the earth—

⁷everyone who is called by my name,

and whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed,

indeed whom I made.”

⁸Bring out the people blind yet^d with eyes,

and deaf, though^e they have ears.

⁹Let all the nations gather together,

and let the peoples assemble.

Who among them has declared this,

and declared^f the former things to us?

Let them bring^g their witnesses, that^h they may be in the right,

and let them hear and say, “It is true!”

¹⁰“You are my witnesses,” declaresⁱ Yahweh,

“and my servant whom I have chosen

so that you may know and believe in^j me

and understand that I am he.

No god was formed before me^k,

and none shall be after me.

¹¹I myself am Yahweh,

and there is no savior besides me!

¹²I myself declared and saved,

and I proclaimed.^l And there was no strange god^m among you.

And you are my witnesses,” declaresⁿ Yahweh,

“and I am God.

¹³Indeed, from this day I am the one,

and no one can deliver from my hand.

I perform,^o and who can cancel it?”^p

Yahweh Rescues His People

¹⁴Thus says Yahweh, your…