Isaiah - Chapter 40

Be comforted, my people

^{1 ①} Be comforted, my people, be strengthened, says your God.

²Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, proclaim to her that her time of bondage is at an end,
that her guilt has been paid for,
that from the hand of Yahweh
she has received double punishment for all her iniquity.

³A voice cries,
“In the wilderness prepare the way for Yahweh.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

⁴Every valley will be raised up;
every mountain and hill will be laid low.
The stumbling blocks shall become level and the rugged places smooth.

⁵The glory of Yahweh will be revealed,
and all mortals together will see it;
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”

⁶A voice says, “Cry.” and I say, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty as the flower of the field.

⁷The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of Yahweh blows upon it.

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

⁹Go up onto the high mountain, messenger of Zion, lift up your voice with strength,
fear not to cry aloud when you tell Jerusalem
and announce to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!

¹⁰Here comes your God with might;
his strong arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and here before him is his booty.

¹¹Like a shepherd he tends his flock:
he gathers the lambs in his arms,
he carries them in his bosom,
gently leading those that are with young.

The great God

¹²Who has measured the waters of the sea in a cupped hand,
or the breadth of the sky in the span of a hand?
Who has collected the sands of the earth? Who has weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

¹³Who has probed the spirit of Yahweh or as a counselor advised him?

¹⁴Whom has he consulted to enlighten him,
and help him to decide?
Who gave him knowledge
and taught him the ways of success?

¹⁵The nations before him are like a drop on the brim of the bucket,
or like dust on the scales.
The islands weigh no more than powder.

¹⁶Lebanon is not enough to burn as altar fire,
nor will its animals provide a holocaust.

¹⁷All nations before him are as nothing, all emptiness, all vanity in his eyes. ¹⁸To whom, then, will you liken God? With whose image will you compare him?

¹⁹To an idol cast by a craftsman, covered with gold by a goldsmith and adorned with silver chains?

²⁰Or to wood that will not rot, chosen and fashioned by a skilled craftsman into an image that cannot move?

²¹Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning,
that you may understand how the earth was founded?

²²He sits far above the vault of the earth, with its inhabitants like grasshoppers; he stretches out the heavens as a curtain
and spreads them out like a tent where he dwells.

²³He reduces the princes to naught, and the rulers of the earth to nothingness.

²⁴No sooner are they planted or sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them, and they wither, a storm sweeps them away like stubble.

²⁵To whom, then, will you liken me or make me equal? says the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes and see:
who has created all this?
He has ordered them as a starry host and called them each by name.
So mighty is his power,
so great his strength,
that not one of them is missing.

²⁷How can you say, O Jacob, how can you complain, O Israel,
that your destiny is hidden from me, that your rights are ignored by Yahweh?

²⁸Have you not known, have you not heard that Yahweh is an everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth? He does not grow tired or weary, his knowledge is without limit.

²⁹He gives strength to the enfeebled, he gives vigor to the wearied.

³⁰Youth may grow tired and faint, young men will stumble and fall,

³¹but those who hope in Yahweh will renew their strength.
They will soar as with eagle’s wings; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and never tire.