Isaiah 51-53

Isaiah 51

¹“Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the LORD. Look to the rock you were cut from, and to the quarry you were dug from.

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

³For the LORD has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in them, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

⁴“Listen to me, my people; and hear me, my nation, for a law will go out from me, and I will establish my justice for a light to the peoples.

⁵My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples. The islands will wait for me, and they will trust my arm.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish away like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment. Its inhabitants will die in the same way, but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not be abolished.

⁷“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Don’t fear the reproach of men, and don’t be dismayed at their insults.

⁸For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of the LORD! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the monster?

¹⁰Isn’t it 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 pass over?

¹¹Those ransomed by the LORD will return, and come with singing to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

¹²“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?

¹³Have you forgotten the LORD your Maker, who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth? Do you live in fear continually all day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepares to destroy? Where is the fury of the oppressor?

¹⁴The captive exile will speedily be freed. He will not die and go down into the pit. His bread won’t fail.

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

¹⁶I have put my words in your mouth and have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and tell Zion, ‘You are my people.’”

¹⁷Awake, awake! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the LORD’s hand the cup of his wrath. You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it.

¹⁸There is no one to guide her among all the sons to whom she has given birth; and there is no one who takes her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up.

¹⁹These two things have happened to you— who will grieve with you?— desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword. How can I comfort you?

²⁰Your sons have fainted. They lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the LORD’s wrath, the rebuke of your God.

²¹Therefore now hear this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:

²²Your Lord GOD, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more.

²³I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may walk over you;’ and you have laid your back as the ground, like a street to those who walk over.”

Isaiah 52

¹Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city, for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.

²Shake yourself from the dust! Arise, sit up, Jerusalem! Release yourself from the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion!

³For the LORD says, “You were sold for nothing; and you will be redeemed without money.”

⁴For the Lord GOD says: “My people went down at the first into Egypt to live there; and the Assyrian has oppressed them without cause.

⁵“Now therefore, what do I do here,” says the LORD, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock,” says the LORD, “and my name is blasphemed continually all day long.

⁶Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore they shall know in that day that I am he who speaks. Behold, it is I.”

⁷How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

⁸Your watchmen lift up their voice. Together they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when the LORD returns to Zion.

⁹Break out into joy! Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem.

¹⁰The LORD has made his holy arm bare in the eyes of all the nations. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

¹¹Depart! Depart! Go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Go out from among her! Cleanse yourselves, you who carry the LORD’s vessels.

¹²For you shall not go out in haste, neither shall you go by flight; for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

¹³Behold, my servant will deal wisely. He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high.

¹⁴Just as many were astonished at you— his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men—

¹⁵so he will cleanse many nations. Kings will shut their mouths at him; for they will see that which had not been told them, and they will understand that which they had not heard.

Isaiah 53

¹Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD’s arm been revealed?

²For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

⁴Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.

⁸He was taken away by oppression and judgment. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?

⁹They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the LORD’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.

¹¹After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.

¹²Therefore I will give him a portion with the great. He will divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.