Isaiah, starting at chapter 40
{40:1} Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God. {40:2}
Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry to her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of
Yahweh's hand double for all her sins. {40:3} The voice of one who
cries, Prepare you in the wilderness the way of Yahweh; make level in
the desert a highway for our God. {40:4} Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven
shall be made level, and the rough places a plain: {40:5} and the
glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it. {40:6} The voice of
one saying, Cry. One said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and
all the glory of it is as the flower of the field. {40:7} The grass
withers, the flower fades, because the breath of Yahweh blows on it;
surely the people is grass. {40:8} The grass withers, the flower
fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever. {40:9} You who
tell good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain; you who tell good
news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, don't
be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your God! {40:10}
Behold, the Lord Yahweh will come as a mighty one, and his arm will
rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense
before him. {40:11} He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will
gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, [and] will
gently lead those who have their young. {40:12} Who has measured the
waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the sky with the span,
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the
mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? {40:13} Who has
directed the Spirit of Yahweh, or being his counselor has taught him?
{40:14} With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught
him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shown to him
the way of understanding? {40:15} Behold, the nations are as a drop of
a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance: Behold,
he takes up the isles as a very little thing. {40:16} Lebanon is not
sufficient to burn, nor the animals of it sufficient for a burnt
offering. {40:17} All the nations are as nothing before him; they are
accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity. {40:18} To whom
then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare to him?
{40:19} The image, a workman has cast [it], and the goldsmith overlays
it with gold, and casts [for it] silver chains. {40:20} He who is too
impoverished for [such] an offering chooses a tree that will not rot;
he seeks to him a skillful workman to set up an engraved image, that
shall not be moved. {40:21} Have you not known? have yet not heard?
has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood
from the foundations of the earth? {40:22} [It is] he who sits above
the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants of it are as
grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads
them out as a tent to dwell in; {40:23} who brings princes to nothing;
who makes the judges of the earth as vanity. {40:24} Yes, they have
not been planted; yes, they have not been sown; yes, their stock has
not taken root in the earth: moreover he blows on them, and they
wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble. {40:25} To whom
then will you liken me, that I should be equal [to him]? says the Holy
One. {40:26} Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these,
who brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name; by the
greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is
lacking. {40:27} Why say you, Jacob, and speak, Israel, My way is hid
from Yahweh, and the justice [due] to me is passed away from my God?
{40:28} Have you not known? have you not heard? The everlasting God,
Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn't faint, neither
is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. {40:29} He gives
power to the faint; and to him who has no might he increases strength.
{40:30} Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men
shall utterly fall: {40:31} but those who wait for Yahweh shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall
run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.
{41:1} Keep silence before me, islands; and let the peoples renew
their strength: let them come near; then let them speak; let us come
near together to judgment. {41:2} Who has raised up one from the east,
whom he calls in righteousness to his foot? he gives nations before
him, and makes him rule over kings; he gives them as the dust to his
sword, as the driven stubble to his bow. {41:3} He pursues them, and
passes on safely, even by a way that he had not gone with his feet.
{41:4} Who has worked and done it, calling the generations from the
beginning? I, Yahweh, the first, and with the last, I am he. {41:5}
The isles have seen, and fear; the ends of the earth tremble; they
draw near, and come. {41:6} They help everyone his neighbor; and
[every one] says to his brother, Be of good courage. {41:7} So the
carpenter encourages the goldsmith, [and] he who smoothes with the
hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, It is good;
and he fastens it with nails, that is should not be moved. {41:8} But
you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham
my friend, {41:9} you whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the
earth, and called from the corners of it, and said to you, You are my
servant, I have chosen you and not cast you away; {41:10} Don't you be
afraid, for I am with you; don't be dismayed, for I am your God; I
will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with
the right hand of my righteousness. {41:11} Behold, all those who are
incensed against you shall be disappointed and confounded: those who
strive with you shall be as nothing, and shall perish. {41:12} You
shall seek them, and shall not find them, even those who contend with
you: those who war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of
nothing. {41:13} For I, Yahweh your God, will hold your right hand,
saying to you, Don't be afraid; I will help you. {41:14} Don't be
afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says
Yahweh, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. {41:15} Behold, I
have made you [to be] a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make
the hills as chaff. {41:16} You shall winnow them, and the wind shall
carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; and you shall
rejoice in Yahweh, you shall glory in the Holy One of Israel. {41:17}
The poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue
fails for thirst; I, Yahweh, will answer them, I, the God of Israel,
will not forsake them. {41:18} I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and springs in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a
pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. {41:19} I will put
in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, and the myrtle, and the oil
tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, the pine, and the box
tree together: {41:20} that they may see, and know, and consider, and
understand together, that the hand of Yahweh has done this, and the
Holy One of Israel has created it. {41:21} Produce your cause, says
Yahweh; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob.
{41:22} Let them bring forth, and declare to us what shall happen:
declare you the former things, what they are, that we may consider
them, and know the latter end of them; or show us things to come.
{41:23} Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may
know that you are gods: yes, do good, or do evil, that we may be
dismayed, and see it together. {41:24} Behold, you are of nothing, and
your work is of nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you. {41:25}
I have raised up one from the north, and he has come; from the rising
of the sun one who calls on my name: and he shall come on rulers as on
mortar, and as the potter treads clay. {41:26} Who has declared it
from the beginning, that we may know? and before, that we may say, [He
is] right? yes, there is none who declares, yes, there is none who
shows, yes, there is none who hears your words. {41:27} [I am the]
first [who says] to Zion, Behold, behold them; and I will give to
Jerusalem one who brings good news. {41:28} When I look, there is no
man: even among them there is no counselor who, when I ask of them,
can answer a word. {41:29} Behold, all of them, their works are vanity
[and] nothing; their molten images are wind and confusion.
{42:1} Behold, my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul
delights: I have put my Spirit on him; he will bring forth justice to
the Gentiles. {42:2} He will not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause
it to be heard in the street. {42:3} A bruised reed will he not break,
and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth
justice in truth. {42:4} He will not fail nor be discouraged, until he
have set justice in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.
{42:5} Thus says God Yahweh, he who created the heavens, and stretched
them forth; he who spread abroad the earth and that which comes out of
it; he who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who
walk therein: {42:6} I, Yahweh, have called you in righteousness, and
will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of
the people, for a light of the Gentiles; {42:7} to open the blind
eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit
in darkness out of the prison-house. {42:8} I am Yahweh, that is my
name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to
engraved images. {42:9} Behold, the former things have happened, and
new things do I declare. Before they spring forth I tell you of them.
{42:10} Sing to Yahweh a new song, and his praise from the end of the
earth; you who go down to the sea, and all that is therein, the isles,
and the inhabitants of it. {42:11} Let the wilderness and the cities
of it lift up [their voice], the villages that Kedar does inhabit; let
the inhabitants of Sela sing, let them shout from the top of the
mountains. {42:12} Let them give glory to Yahweh, and declare his
praise in the islands. {42:13} Yahweh will go forth as a mighty man;
he will stir up [his] zeal like a man of war: he will cry, yes, he
will shout aloud; he will do mightily against his enemies. {42:14} I
have long time held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself:
[now] will I cry out like a travailing woman; I will gasp and pant
together. {42:15} I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all
their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the
pools. {42:16} I will bring the blind by a way that they don't know;
in paths that they don't know will I lead them; I will make darkness
light before them, and crooked places straight. These things will I
do, and I will not forsake them. {42:17} They shall be turned back,
they shall be utterly disappointed, who trust in engraved images, who
tell molten images, You are our gods. {42:18} Hear, you deaf; and
look, you blind, that you may see. {42:19} Who is blind, but my
servant? or deaf, as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who
is at peace, and blind as Yahweh's servant? {42:20} You see many
things, but don't observe. His ears are open, but he doesn't hear.
{42:21} It pleased Yahweh, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify the
law, and make it honorable. {42:22} But this is a people robbed and
plundered; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in
prison-houses: they are for a prey, and none delivers; for a spoil,
and none says, Restore. {42:23} Who is there among you who will give
ear to this? who will listen and hear for the time to come? {42:24}
Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Didn't Yahweh?
he against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they would not walk,
neither were they obedient to his law. {42:25} Therefore he poured on
him the fierceness of his anger, and the strength of battle; and it
set him on fire round about, yet he didn't know; and it burned him,
yet he didn't lay it to heart.
________________________________________________________________________
The World English Bible (WEB) is in the Public Domain. Comments and
typo reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED] are welcome. Please see
http://eBible.org/bible/web for updates, revision status, and free
downloads. You may now purchase a printed and bound New Testament plus
Psalms and Proverbs of the World English Bible at
https://www12.secure-website.net/~ebible/buy.htm, or order ISBN
0-9703344-0-0 from your bookstore.
___
To unsubscribe, please send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe bible
in the body of the message OR go to http://ebible.org/subscribe.htm
