Isaiah 41–64

Israel Assured of God’s Help

⁴¹Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;

let the peoples renew their strength;

let them approach, then let them speak;

let us together draw near for judgment.^*

²Who has roused a victor from the east,

summoned him to his service?

He delivers up nations to him

and tramples kings under foot;

he makes them like dust with his sword,

like driven stubble with his bow.^*

³He pursues them and passes on safely,

scarcely touching the path with his feet.

⁴Who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord, am first

and will be with the last.^*

⁵The coastlands have seen and are afraid;

the ends of the earth tremble;

they have drawn near and come.^*

⁶Each one helps the other,

saying to one another, “Take courage!”^*

⁷The artisan encourages the goldsmith,

and the one who smooths with the hammer encourages the one who strikes the anvil,

saying of the soldering, “It is good,”

and they fasten it with nails so that it cannot be moved.^*

⁸But you, Israel, my servant,

Jacob, whom I have chosen,

the offspring of Abraham, my friend;^*

⁹you whom I took from the ends of the earth

and called from its farthest corners,

saying to you, “You are my servant;

I have chosen you and not cast you off”;^*

¹⁰do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be afraid, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you; I will help you;

I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.^*

¹¹All who are incensed against you

shall be ashamed and disgraced;

those who strive against you

shall be as nothing and shall perish.^*

¹²You shall seek those who contend with you,

but you shall not find them;

those who war against you

shall be as nothing at all.^*

¹³For I, the Lord your God,

hold your right hand;

it is I who say to you, “Do not fear,

I will help you.”^*

¹⁴Do not fear, you worm Jacob,

you maggot^s Israel!

I will help you, says the Lord;

your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.^*

¹⁵I will make of you a threshing sledge,

sharp, new, and having teeth;

you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,

and you shall make the hills like chaff.^*

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

and the tempest shall scatter them.

Then you shall rejoice in the Lord;

in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.^*

¹⁷When the poor and needy seek water,

and there is none,

and their tongue is parched with thirst,

I the Lord will answer them,

I the God of Israel will not forsake them.^*

¹⁸I will open rivers on the bare heights

and fountains in the midst of the valleys;

I will make the wilderness a pool of water

and the dry land springs of water.^*

¹⁹I will put in the wilderness the cedar,

the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive;

I will set in the desert the cypress,

the plane and the pine together,

²⁰so that all may see and know,

all may consider and understand,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

the Holy One of Israel has created it.^*

The Futility of Idols

²¹Set forth your case, says the Lord;

bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.^*

²²Let them bring them and tell us

what is to happen.

Tell us the former things, what they were,

so that we may consider them

and that we may know their outcome

or declare to us the things to come.^*

²³Tell us what is to come hereafter,

that we may know that you are gods;

do good, or do harm,

that we may be afraid and terrified.^*

²⁴You, indeed, are nothing,

and your work is nothing at all;

whoever chooses you is an abomination.^*

²⁵I stirred up one from the north, and he has come,

from the rising of the sun he was summoned by name.^t

He shall trample^u on rulers as on mortar,

as the potter treads clay.^*

²⁶Who declared it from the beginning, so that we might know,

and beforehand, so that we might say, “He is right”?

There was no one who declared it, none who proclaimed,

none who heard your words.^*

²⁷I first have declared it to Zion,^v

and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good tidings.^*

²⁸But when I look there is no one;

among these there is no counselor

who, when I ask, gives an answer.^*

²⁹No, they are all a delusion;

their works are nothing;

their images are empty wind.^*

The Servant, a Light to the Nations

⁴²Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

I have put my spirit upon him;

he will bring forth justice to the nations.^*

²He will not cry out or lift up his voice

or make it heard in the street;

³a bruised reed he will not break,

and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;

he will faithfully bring forth justice.^*

⁴He will not grow faint or be crushed

until he has established justice in the earth,

and the coastlands wait for his teaching.^*

⁵Thus says God, the Lord,

who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and what comes from it,

who gives breath to the people upon it

and spirit to those who walk in it:^*

⁶I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;

I have taken you by the hand and kept you;

I have given you as a covenant to the people,^w

a light to the nations,^*

⁷to open the eyes that are blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

from the prison those who sit in darkness.^*

⁸I am the Lord; that is my name;

my glory I give to no other,

nor my praise to idols.^*

⁹See, the former things have come to pass,

and new things I now declare;

before they spring forth,

I tell you of them.^*

A Hymn of Praise

¹⁰Sing to the Lord a new song,

his praise from the end of the earth!

Let the sea roar^x and all that 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 shout for joy;

let them shout from the tops of the mountains.

¹²Let them give glory to the Lord

and declare his praise in the coastlands.^*

¹³The Lord goes forth like a soldier;

like a warrior he stirs up his fury;

he cries out; he shouts aloud;

he shows himself mighty against his foes.^*

¹⁴For a long time I have held my peace;

I have kept still and restrained myself;

now I will cry out like a woman in labor;

I will gasp and pant.^*

¹⁵I will lay waste mountains and hills

and dry up all their herbage;

I will turn the rivers into islands

and dry up the pools.^*

¹⁶I will lead the blind

by a road they do not know;

by paths they have not known

I will guide them.

I will turn the darkness before them into light,

the rough places into level ground.

These are the things I will do,

and I will not forsake them.^*

¹⁷They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame—

those who trust in carved images,

who say to cast images,

“You are our gods.”^*

¹⁸Listen, you who are deaf,

and you who are blind, look up and see!

¹⁹Who is blind but my servant

or deaf like my messenger whom I send?

Who is blind like my dedicated one

or blind like the servant of the Lord?^*

²⁰He sees many things, but he does^y not observe them;

his ears are open, but he does not hear.^*

Israel’s Disobedience

²¹The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness,

to magnify his teaching and make it glorious.^*

²²But this is a people robbed and plundered;

all of them are trapped in holes

and hidden in prisons;

they have become a prey with no one to rescue,

a spoil with no one to say, “Restore!”^*

²³Who among you will give heed to this;

who will attend and listen for the time to come?

²⁴Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler

and Israel to the robbers?

Was it not the Lord, against whom they sinned,^z

in whose ways they would not walk,

and whose law they would not obey?^*

²⁵So he poured upon him the heat of his anger

and the fury of war;

it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;

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

Restoration and Protection Promised

⁴³But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name; you are mine.^*

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

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.^*

³For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

Cush and Seba in exchange for you.^*

⁴Because you are precious in my sight

and honored and I love you,

I give people in return for you,

nations in exchange for your life.^*

⁵Do not fear, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

and from the west I will gather you;^*

⁶I will say to the north, “Give them up,”

and to the south, “Do not withhold;

bring my sons from far away

and my daughters from the end of the earth—^*

⁷everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”^*

⁸Bring forth the people who are blind yet have eyes,

who are deaf yet have ears!^*

⁹Let all the nations gather together,

and let the peoples assemble.

Who among them declared this

and foretold to us the former things?

Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,

and let them hear and say, “It is true.”^*

¹⁰You are my witnesses, says the Lord,

and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor shall there be any after me.^*

¹¹I, I am the Lord,

and besides me there is no savior.^*

¹²I am the one who declared and saved and proclaimed,

not some strange god among you;

you are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God.^*

¹³Indeed, since that day I am he;

there is no one who can deliver from my hand;

I work, and who can hinder it?^*

¹⁴Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

For your sake I will send to Babylon

and break down all the bars,

and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation.^a*

¹⁵I am the Lord, your Holy One,

the Creator of Israel, your King.

¹⁶Thus says the Lord,

who makes a way in the sea,

a path in the mighty waters,^*

¹⁷who brings out chariot and horse,

army and warrior;

they lie down; they cannot rise;

they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:^*

¹⁸Do not remember the former things

or consider the things of old.…