Isaiah 49:8–21

Yahweh Restores the Afflicted

⁸Thus says Yahweh:

“I have answered you in a time of favor,

and helped you on a day of salvation,

and watched over you,

and given you as a covenant of the people,

to raise up the land,

to give the desolate hereditary property as an inheritance,

⁹saying to the prisoners,^j “Come out!”

to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves!”

they shall feed along^k the ways,

and their pasturage shall be on all the barren heights.

¹⁰They shall not be hungry or thirsty,

and heat and sun shall not strike them,

for he who takes pity on them will lead them,

and he will guide them to springs of water.

¹¹And I will make^l all my mountains like a road,

and my highways shall lead up.^m

¹²Look! These shall come from afar,

And look! These from the north and from the west

and these from the land of Sinim.”

¹³Sing for joy, heavens, and rejoice, earth!

Mountains must break forth in rejoicing!

For Yahweh has comforted his people,

and he will take pity on his afflicted ones.

Yahweh Remembers Zion

¹⁴Butⁿ Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me,

and the Lord has forgotten me!”

¹⁵Can a woman forget her suckling,

refrain from having compassion on the child of her womb?

Indeed, these may forget,

but^o I, I will not forget you!

¹⁶Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are continually before me.

¹⁷Your children hasten;

your destroyers and those who laid you waste depart^p from you.

¹⁸Lift your eyes up all around and see;

all of them gather; they come to you.

As surely as I live,^q

declares^r Yahweh,

surely you shall put on all of them like an ornament,

and you shall bind them on like a bride.

¹⁹Surely your sites of ruins and desolate places and land of ruins,^s

surely now you will be too cramped for your^t inhabitants,^u

and those who engulfed you will be far away.

²⁰Yet the children born when you were bereaved^v will say in your hearing,^w

“The place is too cramped for me;

make room^x for me so that I can dwell.”

²¹Then^y you will say in your heart,

“Who has borne me these?”

And, “I was bereaved and barren,

exiled and thrust away;

so^z who raised these?

Look at me! I was left alone;

where have these come from?”^a