Isaiah 51

The Lord

51 ¹Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the LORD.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn
and to the quarry from which you were cut.

²Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah who gave birth to you;

for he was only one when I called him,
then I blessed him, and I multiplied him.

Isaiah

³For the LORD comforts Zion:
He comforts all her desolate places;

and He will make her wilderness like Eden
and her desert like the garden of the LORD;

exultation and rejoicing will be found in her,
thanksgiving, and the sound of singing.

The Lord

⁴Hearken to Me, My people;
and My nation, give ear to Me;

for the law will go forth from Me,
and I will make My judgment as a light for peoples.

⁵My righteousness is near;
My salvation is gone forth,
and My arm will judge peoples;

the isles will hope for Me,
and on My arm, they will wait.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
and look upon the earth beneath;

for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
and the earth will wear out like a garment,
and they that dwell therein will die in like manner;

but My salvation will be forever,
and My righteousness will never be shattered.

⁷Listen to Me, you that know righteousness,
a people in whose heart [I have written][1] My law;

fear not the insults of men,
neither be dismayed at their revilings,

^8for the moth will eat them like a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool;

but My righteousness will be forever,
and My salvation from generation to generation.

Isaiah

⁹Awake, awake! Clothe yourself with strength;
O arm of the LORD, awake, as in the days of old.

Are you [He][2] that cut Rahab to pieces?
Piercing the sea monster?

¹⁰Are you not [He][3] that has dried the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
that has made a way in the depths of the sea for the redeemed to pass over?

¹¹And the ransomed of the LORD will return
and come with singing to Zion;

and everlasting joy [and holiness][4] will be upon their heads,
[and][5] gladness and joy will overtake them;
sorrow and sighing will flee away.

The Lord

¹²I [am He,
yea][6], I am He,

who comforts you.
[Behold], who are you,

that you are afraid of a man that will die,
and of a son of a human, who is made like grass?

¹³And you forgot the LORD,
your Maker,

who stretches out the heavens
and lays the foundations of the earth;

and you have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor,
when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?

¹⁴The one who is captive will quickly be freed
and will not die in the pit,
nor will his bread fail.

¹⁵And I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea
and its waves roar. The LORD of Hosts is His name.

¹⁶And I have put My words in your mouth,
and I have covered you with the shadow of My hand,

to plant the heavens,
and to lay the foundations of the earth,

and to say to Zion:
“[Behold][7], you are My people.”

Isaiah

¹⁷Wake yourself, wake yourself;[8]
arise, O Jerusalem!

You who have drunk from the hand of the LORD, the cup of His fury;
you have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, drained out.

¹⁸[And][9] there is no one guiding her among all the children she has borne;
and there is no one taking her by the hand, among all of the children she has brought up.

¹⁹These two [sons] have come to you.
Who will be sorry for you?

[Your] desolation and destruction,
and famine and sword!

[And] who will comfort you?

²⁰Your sons have fainted [save these two],
they lie at the head of all the streets;

as an antelope in a net, they are full of the fury of the LORD,
the rebuke of your God.

²¹Therefore hear now this, you afflicted
and drunken, and not with wine.

²²Thus says Your Lord, the LORD and Your God, He who pleads the cause of His people.

The Lord

“Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling,
the dregs of the cup of My fury; you will not drink it again.

²³But I will put it into the hand of them that torment you, who have said to your soul,

Tormenters

‘Bow, that we may pass over’;

The Lord

and you have made your back like the ground
and like the street to them that passed over.