Isaiah 41–63

Chapter 41

¹Listen 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 stirred up one from the east

whom victory meets at every step?

He gives up nations before him,

so that he 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,

by paths his feet have not trod.

⁴Who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord, the first,

and with the last; I am He.

⁵The coastlands have seen and are afraid,

the ends of the earth tremble;

they have drawn near and come.

⁶Every one helps his neighbor,

and says to his brother, “Take courage!”

⁷The craftsman encourages the goldsmith,

and he who smooths with the hammer him 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”;

¹⁰fear not, for I am with you,

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

¹¹Behold, all who are incensed against you

shall be put to shame and confounded;

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, “Fear not, I will help you.”

¹⁴Fear not, you worm Jacob,

you men of Israel!

I will help you, says the Lord;

your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵Behold, I will make of you a threshing sledge,

new, sharp, 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.

And 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;

²⁰that men may see and know,

may consider and understand together,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

the Holy One of Israel has created it.

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 are,

that we may consider them,

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 dismayed and terrified.

²⁴Behold, you are nothing,

and your work is nought;

an abomination is he who chooses you.

²⁵I stirred up one from the north,

and he has come,

from the rising of the sun, and he shall call on my name;

he shall trample^r on rulers as on mortar,

as the potter treads clay.

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

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

There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,

none who heard your words.

²⁷I first have declared it to Zion,^s

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.

²⁹Behold, they are all a delusion;

their works are nothing;

their molten images are empty wind.

Chapter 42

¹Behold 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 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 fail^t or be discouraged^u

till he has established justice in the earth;

and the coastlands wait for his law.

⁵Thus says God, the Lord,

who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread forth the earth and what comes from it,

who gives breath to the people upon it

and spirit to those who walk in it:

⁶“I 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,

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 graven images.

⁹Behold, the former things have come to pass,

and new things I now declare;

before they spring forth

I tell you of them.”

¹⁰Sing to the Lord a new song,

his praise from the end of the earth!

Let the sea roar and all that fills it,

the coastlands and their inhabitants.

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

the villages that Kedar inhabits;

let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy,

let them shout from the top of the mountains.

¹²Let them give glory to the Lord,

and declare his praise in the coastlands.

¹³The Lord goes forth like a mighty man,

like a man of war 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 travail,

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.

¹⁶And I will lead the blind

in a way that they know not,

in paths that 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,

who trust in graven images,

who say to molten images,

“You are our gods.”

¹⁸Hear, you deaf;

and look, you blind, that you may see!

¹⁹Who is blind but my servant,

or deaf as my messenger whom I send?

Who is blind as my dedicated one,

or blind as the servant of the Lord?

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

his ears are open, but he does not hear.

²¹The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake,

to magnify his law and make it glorious.

²²But this is a people robbed and plundered,

they are all of them trapped in holes

and hidden in prisons;

they have become a prey with none to rescue,

a spoil with none to say, “Restore!”

²³Who among you will give ear to this,

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 we have sinned,

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 might of battle;

it set him on fire round about, but he did not understand;

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

Chapter 43

¹But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, 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,

Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

⁴Because you are precious in my eyes,

and honored, and I love you,

I give men in return for you,

peoples in exchange for your life.

⁵Fear not, 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 up,

and to the south, Do not withhold;

bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the end of the earth,

⁷every one 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 can declare this,

and show us the former things?

Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,

and let them hear and say, It is true.

¹⁰“You are my witnesses,” says the Lord,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,

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 declared and saved and proclaimed,

when there was no strange god among you;

and you are my witnesses,” says the Lord.

¹³“I am God, and also henceforth I am He;

there is none 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 lamentations.^x

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 forth chariot and horse,

army and warrior;

they lie down, they cannot rise,

they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

¹⁸“Remember not the former things,

nor consider the things of old.

¹⁹Behold, I am doing a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

²⁰The wild beasts will honor me,

the jackals and the ostriches;

for I give…