Isaiah

Words of Comfort to Jerusalem

Listen to me, you who pursue justice, you who go in search of the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, to the pit from which you were quarried.

Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. He was alone when I called him, but I blessed and increased him.

Truly the Lord’s compassion is for Zion, his mercy is upon all her ruins. He will make her deserts like Eden, Her wastelands like the Lord’s garden. In her will be found joy and rejoicing, melody and song of praise and thanksgiving.

Listen to me, you people, hear me, O nations. I am to give you my law, my justice will be a light to the nations.

Suddenly my justice will appear, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will impose my rule. The islands also wait in hope for me, trusting in my arm.

Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look upon the earth beneath. Like smoke, the heavens will vanish, and the earth wear out like a garment; its inhabitants will fall like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my justice will never fail.

Hear me, you who know righteousness, you who have my law in your hearts: do not fear the reproach of others or be terrified by their mocking.

For they will be like garments eaten by moths, like wool consumed by grubs. But my justice will last forever and my salvation for all generations.

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in ancient days, in times of generations long ago. Did you not split Rahab in two and pierced the dragon through?

Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, to make a way on the seabed for the redeemed to pass over?

The redeemed of the Lord will return and come to Zion singing with joy, crowned with everlasting gladness, while sorrow and mourning flee away.

I, yes I, am your comforter. How then can you be afraid of the one who dies, of humans who fade like grass?

Are you forgetting the Lord who made you, who stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth? Why live every day in constant fear of the fury of the oppressor, when he sets out to destroy you? And where is the fury of the oppressor?

The captive exiles will soon be free; they will not die in deep prison, nor will they want for food.

I am the Lord, your God, the one who stirs the sea, making its waves roar. My name is the Lord Sabaoth.

I have put my words in your mouth as I stretched out the heavens. When I laid the earth’s foundations, I told Zion: “You are my people, and I have shielded you in the shadow of my hand.”

Awake, awake! Arise, O Jerusalem, you who drank at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury, the cup which made you tremble, that you drank to the last drop!

Among all the children she bore, she has no one to guide her; among all the sons she reared, she has no one to take her by the hand.

These double calamities have befallen you— ruin and destruction, famine and sword.

Your children were found helpless at the corner of every street, like wild bulls in a net. They had drunk to the full the fury of the Lord, the wrath of your God.

Therefore, hear this now, you afflicted one who is drunk but not with wine.

Thus says the Lord, your Master, your God, who defends his people: See, I am taking out of your hand the cup of trembling, the cup of my anger— you will drink of it no more.

But I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, those who ordered you to bow down, that they might trample on you, while you laid your body as a pavement, as a street for them to walk on.