Isaiah 51

1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord: look to the solid rock, which ye have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which ye have dug. 2 Look to Abraam your father, and to Sarrha that bore you: for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him. 3 And now I will comfort thee, O Sion: and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as a garden, and her aHeb. שוב ambiguous.western places as the garden of the Lord; they shall find in her gladness and exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.

4 Hear me, hear me, my people; and ye kings, hearken to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment shall be for a light of bOr, the Gentiles.the nations. 5 My righteousness speedily draws nigh, and my salvation shall go forth cNot in Heb. or Alex.as light, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust. 6 Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my righteousness shall not fail.

7 Hear me, ye that know judgment, the people in whose heart is my law: fear not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their contempt. 8 For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth, so shall they be consumed; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation for all generations.

9 Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, and put on the strength of thine arm; awake as dGr. the beginning of day.in the early time, as the ancient generation. 10 Art thou not it that dried the sea, the water, even the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered and redeemed? 11 for by the help of the Lord they shall return, and come to Sion with joy and everlasting exultation, for praise and joy shall come upon their head: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away.

12 I, even I, am he that comforts thee: consider who thou art, that thou wast afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass. 13 And thou hast forgotten God who made thee, who made the sky and founded the earth; and thou wert continually afraid because of the wrath of him that afflicted thee: for whereas he counselled to take thee away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted thee? 14 For in thy deliverance he shall not halt, nor tarry; 15 for I am thy God, that troubles the sea, and causes the waves thereof to roar: the Lord of hosts is my name. 16 I will put my words into thy mouth, and I will shelter thee under the shadow of mine hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and the Lord shall say to Sion, Thou art my people.

17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury: for thou hast drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of wrath: 18 and there was none to comfort thee of all the children whom thou borest; and there was none to take hold of thine hand, not even of all the children whom thou hast reared. 19 Wherefore these things are against thee; who shall sympathise with thee in thy grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort thee? 20 Thy sons are the perplexed ones, that sleep at the top of every street as a half-boiled beet; they that are full of the anger of the Lord, caused to faint by the Lord God.

21 Therefore hear, thou afflicted one, and drunken, but not with wine; 22 thus saith the Lord God that judges his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of calamity, the cup of my wrath; and thou shalt not drink it any more. 23 And I will give it into the hands of them that injured thee, and them that afflicted thee; who said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may pass over: and thou didst level thy body with the ground to them passing by without.