Isaiah 51

1Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek Yahweh: look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were dug.

2Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him when he was one, and I blessed him and multiplied him.

3For Yahweh comforts Zion; he comforts all her ruins. He makes her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of song.

4Pay attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for instruction will go out from me, and I will set my justice as a light for the peoples.

5My righteousness is near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands will wait for me, and for my arm they will hope.

6Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die likewise. But my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not be shattered.

7Listen to me, you who know righteousness, people with my law in their hearts: do not fear the reproach of man, and do not be dismayed by their insults.

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 to generation after generation.

9Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh; awake, as in days of old, generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?

10Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to cross over?

11And the redeemed of Yahweh will return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy will be upon their heads; gladness and joy will overtake them; sorrow and sighing will flee away.

12I, I am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear man, who dies, and the son of man, who is made like grass?

13and you forgot Yahweh your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth, and you feared continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor, when he set himself to destroy. But where is the fury of the oppressor?

14The one bent low will soon be set free; he will not die in the pit, and his bread will not be lacking.

15For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— Yahweh of hosts is his name.

16And I have put my words in your mouth, and covered you with the shadow of my hand, to plant the heavens and to found the earth, and to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’

17Awake, awake, rise up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of Yahweh the cup of his wrath; you have drunk the bowl, the cup of staggering; you have drained it dry.

18There is no one to guide her among all the sons she has borne, and no one to take her by the hand among all the sons she has raised.

19These two things have come upon you—who will mourn for you?—devastation and destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?

20Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street, like an antelope in a net, full of the wrath of Yahweh, the rebuke of your God.

21Therefore, please hear this, afflicted one, drunk, but not from wine:

22Thus says your Lord, Yahweh, and your God, who pleads the cause of his people: Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering, the bowl of the cup of my wrath; you shall never again drink it.

23And I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who said to you, ‘Bow down, so that we may pass over’; and you made your back like the ground, and like the street for those passing by.