Isaiah 40-42

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Isaiah 40

Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your Elohim. 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.

 

3 The voice of one that cries, Prepare you in the wilderness the way of Yahweh; make level in the desert a highway for our Elohim. 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: 5 and the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.

 

6 The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the best of it is as the flower of the field: 7 the grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of Yahweh blows upon it; surely the people is grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our Elohim shall stand forever.

 

9 O you that tells good tidings to Zion, get up on a high mountain; O you that tells good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your Elohim! 10 Behold, the Sovereign 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. 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 that have their young.

 

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and measured out heaven 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? 13 Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh, or being his counselor has taught him? 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? 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. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts of it sufficient for a burnt-offering. 17 All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity.

 

18 To whom then will you liken El? Or What likeness will you compare to him? 19 The image, a workman has cast it, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. 20 He that is too impoverished for such an oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks to him a skilful workman to set up a carved image, that shall not be moved. 21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he that sits above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants of it are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in; 23 that brings princes to nothing; that makes the judges of the earth as vanity. 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 upon them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble. 25 To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal to him? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, that brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.

 

27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from Yahweh, and the justice due to me has passed away from my Elohim? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting Elohim, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He gives power to the faint; and to him that has no might he increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 but they that 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.

 

 

Isaiah 41

Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the peoples renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak; let us come near together to judgment. 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. 3 He pursues them, and passes on safely, even by a way that he had not gone with his feet. 4 Who has worked and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I Yahweh, the first, and with the last, I am he. 5 The isles have seen, and fear; the ends of the earth tremble; they draw near, and come. 6 They help every one his neighbor; and every one says to his brother, Be of good courage. 7 So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith, and he that smooths with the hammer him that strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, It is good; and he fastens it with nails, that it should not be moved.

 

8 But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend, 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; 10 fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your Elohim; I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. 11 Behold, all they that are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded: they that quarrel with you shall be as nothing, and shall perish. 12 You shall seek them, and shall not find them, even them that contend with you: they that war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nothing. 13 For I Yahweh your Elohim will hold your right hand, saying to you, Fear not; I will help you. 14 Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says Yahweh, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. 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. 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.

 

17 The poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst; I Yahweh will answer them, I the Elohim of Israel will not forsake them. 18 I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the middle of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. 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: 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.

 

21 Produce your cause, says Yahweh; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob. 22 Let them bring them forth, and declare to us what shall happen: declare the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them, or show us things to come. 23 Declare the things that are to come after this, that we may know that you are elohim: yes, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. 24 Behold, you are of nothing, and your work is of nothing; an abomination is he that chooses you.

 

25 I have raised up one from the north, and he has come; from the rising of the sun one that calls upon my name: and he shall come upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treads clay. 26 Who has declared it from the beginning, that we may know? And beforetime, that we may say, He is right? Yes, there is no one that declares, yes, there is no one that shows, yes, there is no one that hears your words. 27 I am the first that says to Zion, Behold, behold them; and I will give to Jerusalem one that brings good tidings. 28 And when I look, there is no man; even among them there is no counselor, that, when I ask of them, can answer a word. 29 Behold, all of them, their works are vanity and nothing; their molten images are wind and confusion.

 

 

Isaiah 42

Behold, 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 Gentiles. 2 He will not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. 3 A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth. 4 He will not fail nor be discouraged, till he has set justice in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.

 

5 In this manner says El Yahweh, he that created the heavens, and stretched them forth; he that spreads abroad the earth and that which comes out of it; he that gives breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk in it: 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; 7 to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house. 8 I am Yahweh, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to carved images. 9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.

 

10 Sing to Yahweh a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth; you that go down to the sea, and all that is in it, the isles, and the inhabitants of it. 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. 12 Let them give glory to Yahweh, and declare his praise in the islands. 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.

 

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. 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. 16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; in paths that they know not 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. 17 They shall be turned back, they shall be utterly put to shame, that trust in carved images, that say to molten images, You are our elohim.

 

18 Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see. 19 Who is blind, but my servant? Or deaf, as my messenger that I send? Who is blind as he that is at peace with me, and blind as Yahweh’s servant? 20 You see many things, but you observe not; his ears are open, but he hears not. 21 It pleased Yahweh, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify the law, and make it honorable. 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 no one delivers; for a plunder, and no one says, Restore.

 

23 Who is there among you that will give ear to this? That will listen and hear for the time to come? 24 Who gave Jacob for a plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Did not Yahweh? He against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they would not walk, neither were they obedient to his law. 25 Therefore he poured upon him the fierceness of his anger, and the strength of battle; and it set him on fire all around, yet he knew not: and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.

 

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