Isaiah 40

1Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call out to her that her hard service is completed, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins.

3A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

4Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the uneven ground will become level, and the ridges a plain.

5And the glory of Yahweh will be revealed, and all flesh together will see, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.

6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.

7The grass dries up, the flower withers, because the breath of Yahweh blows on it; surely the people are grass.

8The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

9Go up on a high mountain, bearer of good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, bearer of good news to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

10Behold, the Lord GOD comes with strength, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

11Like a shepherd he will pasture his flock; with his arm he will gather the lambs, and in his bosom he will carry them; he will gently lead the nursing ewes.

12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and measured the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in balances?

13Who has measured the Spirit of Yahweh, or what man has made his counsel known to him?

14Whom did he consult, and who gave him understanding? Who taught him the path of justice, taught him knowledge, and made known to him the way of understanding?

15Look, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as dust on the scales; look, the coastlands he lifts like fine dust.

16Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor are its animals enough for a burnt offering.

17All the nations are as nothing before him; they are regarded by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

18To whom, then, will you liken God, and what likeness will you compare to him?

19As for the idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it.

20He who is too poor for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out for himself a skilled craftsman to prepare an idol that will not totter.

21Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22He is the one who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

23who brings princes to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth like emptiness.

24Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he merely blows on them and they wither, and a storm carries them away like stubble.

25To whom then will you compare me, that I should be equal? says the Holy One.

26Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling all of them by name. Because of the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing.

27Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and my justice is disregarded by my God”?

28Have you not known? Have you not heard? Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow faint or become weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

29He gives strength to the weary, and to the one without vigor he increases might.

30Even young men grow faint and become weary, and young men surely stumble.

31But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength; they will rise up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.