Isaiah: comfort my people

Isaiah 41–43 WEB

^41:1“Keep silent before me, islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come near, then let them speak. Let’s meet together for judgment. ²Who has raised up one from the east? Who called him to his feet in righteousness? He hands over nations to him and makes him rule over kings. He gives them like the dust to his sword, like the driven stubble to his bow. ³He pursues them and passes by safely, even by a way that he had not gone with his feet. ⁴Who has worked and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last, I am he.” ⁵The islands have seen, and fear. The ends of the earth tremble. They approach, and come. ⁶Everyone helps his neighbor. They say to their brothers, “Be strong!” ⁷So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith. He who smooths with the hammer encourages him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good;” and he fastens it with nails, that it might not totter. ⁸“But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend, ⁹you whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and called from its corners, and said to you, ‘You are my servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away.’ ¹⁰Don’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. ¹¹Behold, all those who are incensed against you will be disappointed and confounded. Those who strive with you will be like nothing, and shall perish. ¹²You will seek them, and won’t find them, even those who contend with you. Those who war against you will be as nothing, as a nonexistent thing. ¹³For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Don’t be afraid. I will help you.’ ¹⁴Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel. I will help you,” says the LORD. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁵Behold, I have made you into a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth. You will thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and will make the hills like chaff. ¹⁶You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the whirlwind will scatter them. You will rejoice in the LORD. You will glory in the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁷The poor and needy seek water, and there is none. Their tongue fails for 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 springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. ¹⁹I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness. I will set cypress trees, pine, and box trees together in the desert; ²⁰that they may see, know, consider, and understand together, that the LORD’s hand has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it. ²¹Produce your cause,” says the LORD. “Bring out your strong reasons!” says the King of Jacob. ²²“Let them announce and declare to us what will 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. ²³Declare 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. ²⁴Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination. 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. ²⁶Who has declared it from the beginning, that we may know? and before, that we may say, ‘He is right’? Surely, there is no one who declares. Surely, there is no one who shows. Surely, there is no one who hears your words. ²⁷I am the first to say to Zion, ‘Behold, look at them;’ and I will give one who brings good news to Jerusalem. ²⁸When I look, there is no man, even among them there is no counselor who, when I ask, can answer a word. ²⁹Behold, all of their deeds 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 justice to the nations. ²He will not shout, nor raise his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. ³He won’t break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a dimly burning wick. He will faithfully bring justice. ⁴He will not fail nor be discouraged, until he has set justice on the earth, and the islands wait for his law.” ⁵God the LORD, he who created the heavens and stretched them out, he who spread out the earth and that which comes out of it, he who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk in it, says: ⁶“I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness. I will hold your hand. I will keep you, and make you a covenant for the people, as a light for the nations, ⁷to open the blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison. ⁸“I am the LORD. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to engraved images. ⁹Behold, the former things have happened and I declare new things. I tell you about them before they come up.” ¹⁰Sing to the LORD 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 islands and their inhabitants. ¹¹Let the wilderness and its cities raise their voices, with the villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing. Let them shout from the top of the mountains! ¹²Let them give glory to the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands. ¹³The LORD will go out like a mighty man. He will stir up zeal like a man of war. He will raise a war cry. Yes, he will shout aloud. He will triumph over his enemies. ¹⁴“I have been silent a long time. I have been quiet and restrained myself. Now I will cry out like a travailing woman. I will both gasp and pant. ¹⁵I will destroy mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs. I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the pools. ¹⁶I will bring the blind by a way that they don’t know. I will lead them in paths that they don’t know. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. I will do these things, and I will not forsake them. ¹⁷“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed. ¹⁸“Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see. ¹⁹Who is blind, but my servant? Or who is as deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as the LORD’s servant? ²⁰You see many things, but don’t observe. His ears are open, but he doesn’t listen. ²¹It pleased the LORD, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify the law and make it honorable. ²²But this is a robbed and plundered people. All of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become captives, and no one delivers, and a plunder, and no one says, ‘Restore them!’ ²³Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come? ²⁴Who gave Jacob as plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Didn’t the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, and they disobeyed his law. ²⁵Therefore he poured the fierceness of his anger on him, and the strength of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he didn’t know. It burned him, but he didn’t take it to heart.”

^43:1But now the LORD who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel, says: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. ²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and flame will not scorch you. ³For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I have given Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place. ⁴Since you have been precious and honored in my sight, and I have loved you, therefore I will give people in your place, and nations instead of your life. ⁵Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west. ⁶I will tell the north, ‘Give them up!’ and tell the south, ‘Don’t hold them back! Bring my sons from far away, and my daughters from the ends of the earth— ⁷everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.’” ⁸Bring out the blind people who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears. ⁹Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear, and say, “That is true.” ¹⁰“You are my witnesses,” says the LORD, “With my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me. ¹¹I myself am the LORD. Besides me, there is no savior. ¹²I have declared, I have saved, and I have shown, and there was no strange god among you. Therefore you are my witnesses”, says the LORD, “and I am God. ¹³Yes, since the day was, I am he. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand. I will work, and who can hinder it?” ¹⁴The LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring all of them down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. ¹⁵I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.” ¹⁶The LORD, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters, ¹⁷who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched like a wick) says: ¹⁸“Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. ¹⁹Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. ²⁰The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honor me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen, ²¹the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise. ²²Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel. ²³You have not brought me any of your sheep for burnt offerings, neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense. ²⁴You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. ²⁵I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins. ²⁶Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified. ²⁷Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me. ²⁸Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”