Isaiah, Chapter 51

1. Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you are dug.    2. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.    3. For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.    4. Listen to me, my people; and give ear to me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will establish my judgment as a light to the people.    5. My righteousness is near; my salvation has gone forth, and my arms shall judge the people; the islands shall wait for me, and on my arm shall they trust.    6. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and those who dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.    7. Listen to me, you that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; do not fear the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their reviling.    8. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.    9. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not the one that has cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?    10. Are you not the arm which has dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that has made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?    11. Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.    12. I, even I, am he who comforts you: who are you, that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made like grass;    13. And forget the LORD your maker, who has stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?    14. The captive exile hastens that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.    15. But I am the LORD your God, who divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.    16. And I have put my words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, You are my people.    17. Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; you have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.    18. There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any that takes her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up.    19. These two things have come upon you; who shall be sorry for you? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort you?    20. Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, like a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.    21. Therefore hear now this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:    22. Thus says your Lord the LORD, and your God who pleads the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; you shall no more drink it again:    23. But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you; who have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and you have laid down your body like the ground, and like the street, to those who went over.