Isaiah 51–53

Chapter 51

¹“Hearken to me,

you who pursue deliverance,

you who seek the Lord;

look to the rock from which you were hewn,

and to the quarry from which you were digged.

²Look to Abraham your father

and to Sarah who bore you;

for when he was but one I called him,

and 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.

⁴“Listen to me, my people,

and give ear to me, my nation;

for a law will go forth from me,

and my justice for a light to the peoples.

⁵My deliverance draws near speedily,

my salvation has gone forth,

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 they who dwell in it will die like gnats;

but my salvation will be for ever,

and my deliverance will never be ended.

⁷“Hearken to me, you who know righteousness,

the people in whose heart is my law;

fear not the reproach of men,

and be not dismayed at their revilings.

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

and the worm will eat them like wool;

but my deliverance will be for ever,

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 thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces,

that didst pierce the dragon?

¹⁰Was it not thou that didst dry up the sea,

the waters of the great deep;

that didst make the depths of the sea a way

for the redeemed to pass over?

¹¹And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

¹²“I, I am he that comforts you;

who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,

of the son of man who is made like grass,

¹³and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,

who stretched out the heavens

and laid the foundations of the earth,

and fear continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor,

when he sets himself to destroy?

And where is the fury of the oppressor?

¹⁴He who is bowed down shall speedily be released;

he shall not die and go down to the Pit,

neither shall his bread fail.

¹⁵For I am the Lord your God,

who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—

the Lord of hosts is his name.

¹⁶And I have put my words in your mouth,

and hid you in the shadow of my hand,

stretching out 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 bowl of staggering.

¹⁸There is none to guide her

among all the sons she has borne;

there is none to take her by the hand

among all the sons she has brought up.

¹⁹These two things have befallen you—

who will condole with you? —

devastation and destruction, famine and sword;

who will comfort you?

²⁰Your sons 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 afflicted,

who are drunk, but not with wine:

²²Thus says your Lord, the Lord,

your God who pleads the cause of his people:

“Behold, I have taken from your hand

the cup of staggering;

the bowl of my wrath

you shall drink no more;

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

who have said to you,

‘Bow down, that we may pass over’;

and you have made your back like the ground

and like the street for them to pass over.”

Chapter 52

¹Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments,

O Jerusalem, the holy city;

for there shall no more come into you

the uncircumcised and the unclean.

²Shake yourself from the dust, arise,

O captive Jerusalem;

loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

³For thus says the Lord: “You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money. ⁴For thus says the Lord GOD: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing. ⁵Now therefore what have I here, says the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Their rulers wail, says the Lord, and continually all the day my name is despised. ⁶Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I.”

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of him who brings good tidings,

who publishes peace,

who brings good tidings of good,

who publishes salvation,

who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

⁸Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice,

together they sing for joy;

for eye to eye they see

the return of the Lord to Zion.

⁹Break forth together into singing,

you waste places 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 thence,

touch no unclean thing;

go out from the midst of her, purify yourselves,

you who bear 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.

¹³Behold, my servant shall prosper,

he shall be exalted and lifted up,

and shall be very high.

¹⁴As many were astonished at him—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the sons of men—

¹⁵so shall he startle many nations;

kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

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

and that which they have not heard they shall understand.

Chapter 53

¹Who 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 comeliness that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised,

and we esteemed him not.

⁴Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

and with his stripes we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned every one to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,

so he opened not his mouth.

⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

⁹And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him;

he has put him to grief;

when he makes himself an offering for sin,

he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand;

¹¹he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous;

and he shall bear their iniquities.

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

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

because he poured out his soul to death,

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.