Isaiah - Chapter 51

¹ Listen to me, you who pursue saving justice, you who seek Yahweh. Consider the rock from which you were hewn, the quarry from which you were dug.

² Consider Abraham your father and Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him he was the only one but I blessed him and made him numerous.

³ Yes, Yahweh has pity on Zion, has pity on all her ruins; he will turn her desert into an Eden and her wastelands into the garden of Yahweh. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of music.

⁴ Pay attention to me, my people, listen to me, my nation, for a law will come from me, and I shall make my saving justice the light of peoples.

⁵ My justice is suddenly approaching, my salvation appears, my arm is about to judge the peoples. The coasts and islands will put their hope in me and put their trust in my arm.

⁶ Raise your eyes to the heavens, look down at the earth; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth wear out like clothing and its inhabitants die like vermin, but my salvation will last for ever and my saving justice remain inviolable.

⁷ Listen to me, you who know what saving justice means, a people who take my laws to heart: do not fear people's taunts, do not be alarmed by their insults,

⁸ for the moth will eat them like clothing, the grub will devour them like wool, but my saving justice will last for ever and my salvation for all generations.

⁹ Awake, awake! Clothe yourself in strength, arm of Yahweh. Awake, as in the olden days, generations long ago! Was it not you who split Rahab in half, who pierced the Dragon through?

¹⁰ Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great Abyss; who made the sea-bed into a road for the redeemed to go across?

¹¹ This is why those whom Yahweh has ransomed will return, they will enter Zion shouting for joy, their heads crowned with a joy unending; joy and gladness will escort them and sorrow and sighing will take flight.

¹² I, I am your consoler. Why then should you be afraid of mortal human beings, of a child of man, whose fate is that of the grass?

¹³ You forget about Yahweh your Creator who spread out the heavens and laid the earth's foundations; you have never stopped trembling all day long before the fury of the oppressor when he was bent on destruction. Where is the oppressor's fury now?

¹⁴ The despairing captive is soon to be set free; he will not die in the dungeon, nor will his food run out.

¹⁵ I am Yahweh your God who stirs up the sea, making its waves roar -- Yahweh Sabaoth is my name.

¹⁶ I put my words into your mouth, I hid you in the shadow of my hand, to spread out the heavens and lay the earth's foundations and say to Zion, 'You are my people.'

¹⁷ Awake, awake! To your feet, Jerusalem! You who from Yahweh's hand have drunk the cup of his wrath. The chalice, the stupefying cup, you have drained to the dregs.

¹⁸ There is no one to guide her of all the children she has borne, no one to grasp her hand of all the children she has reared.

¹⁹ Double disaster has befallen you -- who is there to sympathise? Pillage and ruin, famine and sword -- who is there to console you?

²⁰ Your children are lying helpless at the end of every street like an antelope trapped in a net; they are filled to the brim with Yahweh's wrath, with the rebuke of your God.

²¹ So listen to this, afflicted one, drunk, though not with wine.

²² Thus says your Lord Yahweh, your God, defender of your people: Look, I am taking the stupefying cup from your hand, the chalice, the cup of my wrath, you will not have to drink again.

²³ I shall hand it to your tormentors who used to say to you, 'On the ground! So that we can walk over you!' And you would flatten your back like the ground, like a street for them to walk on.

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