51
1 Listen to me, you⌃ that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord: look to the solid rock, which you⌃ have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which you⌃ 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 you, O Sion: and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as a garden, and her * 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 you⌃ kings, listen to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgement shall be for a light of † the nations. 5 My righteousness speedily draws near, and my salvation shall go forth ‡ as light, and on my arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on my 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, you⌃ that know judgement, 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 your arm; awake as § in the early time, as the ancient generation. 10 Are you 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 you: consider who you are, that you were afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass. 13 And you have forgotten God who made you, who made the sky and founded the earth; and you were continually afraid because of the wrath of him that afflicted you: for whereas he counselled to take you away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted you? 14 For in your deliverance he shall not halt, nor wait; 15 for I am your 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 your mouth, and I will shelter you under the shadow of my hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and the Lord shall say to Sion, You are my people. 17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury: for you have drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of wrath: 18 and there was none to comfort you of all the children whom you bore; and there was none to take hold of your hand, not even of all the children whom you have reared. 19 Therefore these things are against you; who shall sympathise with you in your grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort you? 20 Your 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, you afflicted one, and drunken, but not with wine; 22 thus says the Lord God that judges his people, Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of calamity, the cup of my wrath; and you shall not drink it any more. 23 And I will give it into the hands of them that injured you, and them that afflicted you; who said to your soul, Bow down, that we may pass over: and you did level your body with the ground to them passing by without.
* 51:3 Heb. שוב ambiguous. † 51:4 Or, the Gentiles. ‡ 51:5 Not in Heb. or Alex. § 51:9 Gr. the beginning of day.