Isaiah 51

¹“Listen to Me, O pursuers of righteousness, seeking YHWH! Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.

²Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you! For I called him alone, and I blessed him and multiplied him.

³For YHWH has comforted Zion; He has comforted all her ruins, and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert plain like the garden of YHWH. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

⁴Pay attention to Me, My people; and My nation, give ear to Me! For from Me a law goes forth, and My justice I will make in an instant as a light to the nations.

⁵My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth; and My arms will judge the nations; the islands will wait for me, and on My arm they will wait in hope.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look to the earth beneath! For the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and its dwellers will die like gnats; and My salvation will be forever, and My righteousness will not be broken.

⁷Listen to Me, O knowers of righteousness, people with My law in their heart: Do not fear the scorn of men, and by their insults do not be broken!

⁸For the moth will devour them like a garment, and the worm will devour them like wool; and My righteousness will be forever, and My salvation to all generations.”

⁹Awake, awake! Put on strength, O arm of YHWH! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of old! Was it not You cutting apart Rahab and piercing through the dragon?

¹⁰Was it not You drying up the Sea, the waters of the great deep, who has made the depths of the sea as a pathway for the redeemed to pass over?

¹¹And the ransomed of YHWH will return, and they will come to Zion, with singing and with gladness everlasting on their heads; gladness and joy will overtake them; sorrow and sighing will flee.

¹²“I—I am He, the One comforting you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man—he will die—and of son of man; he will be set as grass.

¹³And you forget YHWH your Maker, the One stretching out the heavens, and laying the foundations of the earth; and you are in dread continually, all the day, from the face of the rage of the one oppressing, who is prepared to destroy. And where is the rage of the oppressor?

¹⁴The one crouching hastens to be released, that he should not die in the pit, and that his bread should not should be lacking.

¹⁵And I am YHWH your God, the One disturbing the sea, so that its waves roar—YHWH of Hosts is His name!

¹⁶And I have put My words in your mouth, and with the shadow of My hand I have covered you, to plant the heavens and to lay the foundations of the earth, and to say to Zion, ‘You are My people!’”

¹⁷Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, who have drunk from the hand of YHWH the cup of His anger—the goblet, the cup of reeling—you have drunk, you drained it!

¹⁸There is not one guiding her among all the sons she has borne; and there is no one one to take her hand among all the sons she has brought up.

¹⁹These two things are meeting you—who will grieve for you? The devastation and the destruction, and the famine and the sword—who can comfort you?

²⁰Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net, being full of the rage of YHWH, the rebuke of your God.

²¹Therefore hear now this, O afflicted and drunken one, and not with wine!

²²Thus says your Lord YHWH, and your God contending for His people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of reeling—the goblet the cup of My fury. You will not continue to drink it anymore!

²³And I will put it into the hand of those afflicting you, who said to you, ‘Lie down, that we may walk over you!’ And you set your back like the ground, and like the street for walking over.”