Yesha`yahu, starting at chapter 40
{40:1} Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God. {40:2}
Speak comfortably to Yerushalayim; and cry to her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of
the LORD's hand double for all her sins. {40:3} The voice of one who
cries, Prepare you in the wilderness the way of the LORD; 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 the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together; for the mouth of the LORD 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 the LORD 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 Tziyon, go up on a high mountain; you who tell good
news to Yerushalayim, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up,
don't be afraid; say to the cities of Yehudah, Behold, your God!
{40:10} Behold, the Lord GOD 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 [1>]eretz[<1] in a measure, and
weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? {40:13}
Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, 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}
Levanon 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
[2>]eretz[<2]? {40:22} [It is] he who sits above the circle of the
[3>]eretz[<3], 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 [4>]eretz[<4] 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 [5>]eretz[<5]: 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, Ya`akov, and speak, Yisra'el, My way is
hid from the LORD, 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, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the [6>]eretz[<6], 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
the LORD 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, the LORD, the first, and with the last, I am he. {41:5}
The isles have seen, and fear; the ends of the [1>]eretz[<1] 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, Yisra'el, my servant, Ya`akov whom I have chosen, the seed of
Avraham my friend, {41:9} you whom I have taken hold of from the ends
of the [2>]eretz[<2], 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 put to shame
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, the LORD 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 Ya`akov, and you men of
Yisra'el; I will help you, says the LORD, and your Redeemer is the
Holy One of Yisra'el. {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 the LORD,
you shall glory in the Holy One of Yisra'el. {41:17} The poor and
needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for
thirst; I, the LORD, will answer them, I, the God of Yisra'el, 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 shittim, 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 the LORD has done this, and the
Holy One of Yisra'el has created it. {41:21} Produce your cause, says
the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Ya`akov.
{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 Tziyon, Behold, behold them; and I will give to
Yerushalayim 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 Goyim. {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 [1>]eretz[<1]; and the isles shall wait for
his law. {42:5} Thus says God the LORD, he who created the heavens,
and stretched them forth; he who spread abroad the [2>]eretz[<2] 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, the LORD, 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 Goyim;
{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 the LORD, 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 the LORD a new song,
and his praise from the end of the [3>]eretz[<3]; 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 the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands.
{42:13} The LORD 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
shalom; 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
put to shame, 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 shalom, and blind
as the LORD'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 the LORD,
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 Ya`akov
for a spoil, and Yisra'el to the robbers? Didn't the LORD? 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.
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Footnotes:
[1] {40:12} earth
[2] {40:21} earth
[3] {40:22} earth
[4] {40:23} earth
[5] {40:24} earth
[6] {40:28} earth
[1] {41:5} earth
[2] {41:9} earth
[1] {42:4} earth
[2] {42:5} earth
[3] {42:10} earth
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