1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God.
2 Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry to her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of
Yahweh's hand double for all her sins. 3 The voice of one who cries,
Prepare you in the wilderness the way of Yahweh; make level in the
desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every
mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and
the rough places a plain: 5 and the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and
all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.
6 The voice of one saying, Cry. One said, What shall I cry? All flesh is
grass, and all the glory of it is as the flower of the field. 7 The grass
withers, the flower fades, because the breath of Yahweh blows on it; surely
the people is grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word
of our God shall stand forever. 9 You who tell good news to Zion, go up on
a high mountain; you who tell good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with
strength; lift it up, don't be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold,
your God! 10 Behold, the Lord Yahweh will come as a mighty one, and his
arm will rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense
before him. 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the
lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and will gently lead
those who have their young. 12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow
of his hand, and meted out the sky with the span, and comprehended the dust
of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills
in a balance? 13 Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh, or being his
counselor has taught him? 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed
him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and
shown to him the way of understanding? 15 Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance: Behold,
he takes up the isles as a very little thing. 16 Lebanon is not sufficient
to burn, nor the animals of it sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All the
nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than
nothing, and vanity. 18 To whom then will you liken God? or what
likeness will you compare to him? 19 The image, a workman has cast
it, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it
silver chains. 20 He who is too impoverished for such an offering
chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks to him a skillful workman to set
up an engraved image, that shall not be moved. 21 Have you not known?
have yet not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have
you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It
is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants of it
are as grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads
them out as a tent to dwell in; 23 who brings princes to nothing; who
makes the judges of the earth as vanity. 24 Yes, they have not been
planted; yes, they have not been sown; yes, their stock has not taken root in
the earth: moreover he blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind
takes them away as stubble. 25 To whom then will you liken me, that I
should be equal to him? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on
high, and see who has created these, who brings out their host by number; he
calls them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and because he is
strong in power, not one is lacking. 27 Why say you, Jacob, and speak,
Israel, My way is hid from Yahweh, and the justice due to me is
passed away from my God? 28 Have you not known? have you not heard? The
everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn't faint,
neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He gives
power to the faint; and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fall: 31 but those who wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;
they shall walk, and not faint.
World English Bible - Public Domain |
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