Isaiah 51–53

Blessings in Store for God’s People

⁵¹Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,

you who seek the Lord.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn

and to the quarry from which you were dug.^*

²Look to Abraham your father

and to Sarah, who bore you,

for he was but one when I called him,

but I blessed him and made him many.^*

³For the Lord will comfort Zion;

he will comfort all her waste places

and will make her wilderness like Eden,

her desert like the garden of the Lord;

joy and gladness will be found in her,

thanksgiving and the voice of song.^*

⁴Listen to me, my people,

and give heed to me, my nation,

for a teaching will go out from me

and my justice for a light to the peoples.^*

⁵I will bring near my deliverance swiftly;

my salvation has gone out,

and my arms will rule the peoples;

the coastlands wait for me,

and for my arm they hope.^*

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens

and look at the earth beneath,

for the heavens will vanish like smoke,

the earth will wear out like a garment,

and those who live on it will die like gnats,^c

but my salvation will be forever,

and my deliverance will never be ended.^*

⁷Listen to me, you who know righteousness,

you people who have my teaching in your hearts;

do not fear the reproach of others,

and do not be dismayed when they revile you.^*

⁸For the moth will eat them up like a garment,

and the worm will eat them like wool,

but my deliverance will be forever

and my salvation to all generations.^*

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength,

O arm of the Lord!

Awake, as in days of old,

the generations of long ago!

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,

who pierced the dragon?^*

¹⁰Was it not you who dried up the sea,

the waters of the great deep;

who made the depths of the sea a way

for the redeemed to cross over?^*

¹¹So the ransomed of the Lord shall return

and come to Zion with rejoicing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.^*

¹²I, I am he who comforts you;

why then are you afraid of a mere mortal who must die,

a human being who fades like grass?^*

¹³You have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,

who stretched out the heavens

and laid the foundations of the earth.

You fear continually all day long

because of the fury of the oppressor,

who is bent on destruction.

But where is the fury of the oppressor?^*

¹⁴The oppressed shall speedily be released;

they shall not die and go down to the Pit,

nor shall they lack bread.^*

¹⁵For I am the Lord your God,

who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—

the Lord of hosts is his name.^*

¹⁶I have put my words in your mouth

and hidden you in the shadow of my hand,

stretching out^d the heavens

and laying the foundations of the earth

and saying to Zion, “You are my people.”^*

¹⁷Rouse yourself, rouse yourself!

Stand up, O Jerusalem,

you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord

the cup of his wrath,

who have drunk to the dregs

the cup of staggering.^*

¹⁸There is no one to guide her

among all the children she has borne;

there is no one to take her by the hand

among all the children she has brought up.^*

¹⁹These two things have befallen you

—who will grieve with you?—

devastation and destruction, famine and sword.

Who will comfort you?^e*

²⁰Your children have fainted;

they lie at the head of every street

like an antelope in a net;

they are full of the wrath of the Lord,

the rebuke of your God.^*

²¹Therefore hear this, you who are wounded,^f

who are drunk but not with wine:^*

²²Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord,

your God who pleads the cause of his people:

See, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;

you shall drink no more

from the cup of my wrath.^*

²³And I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,

who have said to you,

“Bow down, that we may walk on you,”

and you have made your back like the ground

and like the street for them to walk on.^*

Let Zion Rejoice

⁵²Awake; awake;

put on your strength, O Zion!

Put on your beautiful garments,

O Jerusalem, the holy city,

for the uncircumcised and the unclean

shall enter you no more.^*

²Shake yourself from the dust; rise up,

O captive^g Jerusalem;

loose the bonds from your neck,

O captive daughter Zion!^*

³For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.^{* 4}For thus says the Lord God: Long ago, my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens; the Assyrian, too, has oppressed them without cause.^{* 5}Now therefore what am I doing here, says the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the Lord, and continually, all day long, my name is despised.^{* 6}Therefore my people shall know my name; on^h that day they shall know that it is I who speak—it is I!^*

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,

who brings good news,

who announces salvation,

who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”^*

⁸Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices;

together they shout for joy,

for in plain sight they see

the return of the Lord to Zion.^*

⁹Break forth; shout together for joy,

you ruins of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted his people;

he has redeemed Jerusalem.^*

¹⁰The Lord has bared his holy arm

before the eyes of all the nations,

and all the ends of the earth shall see

the salvation of our God.^*

¹¹Depart, depart, go out from there!

Touch no unclean thing;

go out from the midst of it; purify yourselves,

you who carry the vessels of the Lord.^*

¹²For you shall not go out in haste,

and you shall not go in flight,

for the Lord will go before you,

and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.^*

The Suffering Servant

¹³See, my servant shall prosper;

he shall be exalted and lifted up

and shall be very high.^*

¹⁴Just as there were many who were astonished at himⁱ

—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of mortals—^*

¹⁵so he shall startle^j many nations;

kings shall shut their mouths because of him,

for that which had not been told them they shall see,

and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.^*

⁵³Who has believed what we have heard?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?^*

²For he grew up before him like a young plant

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.^*

³He was despised and rejected by others;

a man of suffering^k and acquainted with infirmity,

and as one from whom others hide their faces^l

he was despised, and we held him of no account.^*

⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities

and carried our diseases,

yet we accounted him stricken,

struck down by God, and afflicted.^*

⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

and by his bruises we are healed.^*

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have all turned to our own way,

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.^*

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.^*

⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?

For he was cut off from the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people.^*

⁹They made his grave with the wicked

and his tomb^m with the rich,ⁿ

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.^*

¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction.

When you make his life an offering for sin,^o

he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days;

through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.^*

¹¹Out of his anguish he shall see;

he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.

The righteous one,^p my servant, shall make many righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.^*

¹²Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out himself to death

and was numbered with the transgressors,

yet he bore the sin of many

and made intercession for the transgressors.^*