Isaiah 51-55

Isaiah 51

¹Give ear to me, you who are searching for righteousness, who are looking for the Lord: see the rock from which you were cut out, and the hole out of which you were taken.

²Let your thoughts be turned to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth: for when he was but one, my voice came to him, and I gave him my blessing, and made him a great people.

³For the Lord has given comfort to Zion: he has made glad all her broken walls; making her waste places like Eden, and changing her dry land into the garden of the Lord; joy and delight will be there, praise and the sound of melody.

⁴Give attention to me, O my people; and give ear to me, O my nation; for teaching will go out from me, and the knowledge of the true God will be a light to the peoples.

⁵Suddenly will my righteousness come near, and my salvation will be shining out like the light; the sea-lands will be waiting for me, and they will put their hope in my strong arm.

⁶Let your eyes be lifted up to the heavens, and turned to the earth which is under them: for the heavens will go in flight like smoke, and the earth will become old like a coat, and its people will come to destruction like insects: but my salvation will be for ever, and my righteousness will not come to an end.

⁷Give ear to me, you who have knowledge of righteousness, in whose heart is my law; have no fear of the evil words of men, and give no thought to their curses.

⁸For like a coat they will be food for the insect, the worm will make a meal of them like wool: but my righteousness will be for ever, and my salvation to all generations.

⁹Awake! awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord, awake! as in the old days, in the generations long past. Was it not by you that Rahab was cut in two, and the dragon Wounded?

¹⁰Did you not make the sea dry, the waters of the great deep? did you not make the deep waters of the sea a way for the Lord's people to go through?

¹¹Those whom the Lord has made free will come back with songs to Zion; and on their heads will be eternal joy: delight and joy will be theirs, and sorrow and sounds of grief will be gone for ever.

¹²I, even I, am your comforter: are you so poor in heart as to be in fear of man who will come to an end, and of the son of man who will be like grass?

¹³And you have given no thought to the Lord your Maker, by whom the heavens were stretched out, and the earth placed on its base; and you went all day in fear of the wrath of the cruel one, when he was making ready for your destruction. And where is the wrath of the cruel one?

¹⁴The prisoner, bent under his chain, will quickly be made free, and will not go down into the underworld, and his bread will not come to an end.

¹⁵For I am the Lord your God, who makes the sea calm when its waves are thundering: the Lord of armies is his name.

¹⁶And I have put my words in your mouth, covering you with the shade of my hand, stretching out the heavens, and placing the earth on its base, and saying to Zion, You are my people.

¹⁷Awake! awake! up! O Jerusalem, you who have taken from the Lord's hand the cup of his wrath; tasting in full measure the wine which overcomes.

¹⁸She has no one among all her children to be her guide; not one of the sons she has taken care of takes her by the hand.

¹⁹These two things have come on you; who will be weeping for you? wasting and destruction; death from need of food, and from the sword; how may you be comforted?

²⁰Your sons are overcome, like a roe in a net; they are full of the wrath of the Lord, the punishment of your God.

²¹So now give ear to this, you who are troubled and overcome, but not with wine:

²²This is the word of the Lord your master, even your God who takes up the cause of his people: See, I have taken out of your hand the cup which overcomes, even the cup of my wrath; it will not again be given to you:

²³And I will put it into the hand of your cruel masters, and of those whose yoke has been hard on you; who have said to your soul, Down on your face! so that we may go over you: and you have given your backs like the earth, even like the street, for them to go over.

Isaiah 52

¹Awake! awake! put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful robes, O Jerusalem, the holy town: for from now there will never again come into you the unclean and those without circumcision.

²Make yourself clean from the dust; up! and take the seat of your power, O Jerusalem: the bands of your neck are loose, O prisoned daughter of Zion.

³For the Lord says, You were given for nothing, and you will be made free without price.

⁴For the Lord God says, My people went down at first into Egypt, to get a place for themselves there: and the Assyrian put a cruel yoke on them without cause.

⁵Now then, what have I here? says the Lord, for my people are taken away without cause; they are made waste and give cries of sorrow, says the Lord, and all the day the nations put shame on my name.

⁶For this cause I will make my name clear to my people; in that day they will be certain that it is my word which comes to them; see, here am I.

⁷How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who comes with good news, who gives word of peace, saying that salvation is near; who says to Zion, Your God is ruling!

⁸The voice of your watchmen! their voices are loud in song together; for they will see him, eye to eye, when the Lord comes back to Zion.

⁹Give sounds of joy, make melody together, waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord has given comfort to his people, he has taken up the cause of Jerusalem.

¹⁰The Lord has let his holy arm be seen by the eyes of all nations; and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.

¹¹Away! away! go out from there, touching no unclean thing; go out from among her; be clean, you who take up the vessels of the Lord.

¹²For you will not go out suddenly, and you will not go in flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will come after you to keep you.

¹³See, my servant will do well in his undertakings, he will be honoured, and lifted up, and be very high.

¹⁴As peoples were surprised at him, And his face was not beautiful, so as to be desired: his face was so changed by disease as to be unlike that of a man, and his form was no longer that of the sons of men.

¹⁵So will nations give him honour; kings will keep quiet because of him: for what had not been made clear to them they will see; and they will give their minds to what had not come to their ears.

Isaiah 53

¹Who would have had faith in the word which has come to our ears, and to whom had the arm of the Lord been unveiled?

²For his growth was like that of a delicate plant before him, and like a root out of a dry place: he had no grace of form, to give us pleasure;

³Men made sport of him, turning away from him; he was a man of sorrows, marked by disease; and like one from whom men's faces are turned away, he was looked down on, and we put no value on him.

⁴But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God's punishment had come.

⁵But it was for our sins he was wounded, and for our evil doings he was crushed: he took the punishment by which we have peace, and by his wounds we are made well.

⁶We all went wandering like sheep; going every one of us after his desire; and the Lord put on him the punishment of us all.

⁷Men were cruel to him, but he was gentle and quiet; as a lamb taken to its death, and as a sheep before those who take her wool makes no sound, so he said not a word.

⁸They took away from him help and right, and who gave a thought to his fate? for he was cut off from the land of the living: he came to his death for the sin of my people.

⁹And they put his body into the earth with sinners, and his last resting-place was with the evil-doers, though he had done no wrong, and no deceit was in his mouth.

¹⁰And the Lord was pleased ... see a seed, long life, ... will do well in his hand. ...

¹¹... made clear his righteousness before men ... had taken their sins on himself.

¹²For this cause he will have a heritage with the great, and he will have a part in the goods of war with the strong, because he gave up his life, and was numbered with the evil-doers; taking on himself the sins of the people, and making prayer for the wrongdoers.

Isaiah 54

¹Let your voice be loud in song, O woman without children; make melody and sounds of joy, you who did not give birth: for the children of her who had no husband are more than those of the married wife, says the Lord.

²Make wide the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your house be stretched out without limit: make your cords long, and your tent-pins strong.

³For I will make wide your limits on the right hand and on the left; and your seed will take the nations for a heritage, and make the waste towns full of people.

⁴Have no fear; for you will not be shamed or without hope: you will not be put to shame, for the shame of your earlier days will go out of your memory, and you will no longer keep in mind the sorrows of your widowed years.

⁵For your Maker is your husband; the Lord of armies is his name: and the Holy One of Israel is he who takes up your cause; he will be named the God of all the earth.

⁶For the Lord has made you come back to him, like a wife who has been sent away in grief of spirit; for one may not give up the wife of one's early days.

⁷For a short time I gave you up; but with great mercies I will take you back again.

⁸In overflowing wrath my face was veiled from you for a minute, but I will have pity on you for ever, says the Lord who takes up your cause.

⁹For this is like the days of Noah to me: for as I took an oath that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so have I taken an oath that I will not again be angry with you, or say bitter words to you.

¹⁰For the mountains may be taken away, and the hills be moved out of their places, but my love will not be taken from you, or my agreement of peace broken, says the Lord, who has had mercy on you.

¹¹O troubled one, storm-crushed, uncomforted! see, your stones will be framed in fair colours, and your bases will be sapphires.

¹²I will make your towers of rubies, and your doors of carbuncles, and the wall round you will be of all sorts of beautiful stones.

¹³And all your builders will be made wise by the Lord; and great will be the peace of your children.

¹⁴All your rights will be made certain to you: have no fear of evil, and destruction will not come near you.

¹⁵See, they may be moved to war, but not by my authority: all those who come together to make an attack on you, will be broken against you.

¹⁶See, I have made the iron-worker, blowing on the burning coals, and making the instrument of war by his work; and I have made the waster for destruction.

¹⁷No instrument of war which is formed against you will be of any use; and every tongue which says evil against you will be judged false. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness comes from me, says the Lord.

Isaiah 55

¹Ho! everyone in need, come to the waters, and he who has no strength, let him get food: come, get bread without money; wine and milk without price.

²Why do you give your money for what is not bread, and the fruit of your work for what will not give you pleasure? Give ear to me, so that your food may be good, and you may have the best in full measure.

³Give ear, and come to me, take note with care, so that your souls may have life: and I will make an eternal agreement with you, even the certain mercies of David.

⁴See, I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a ruler and a guide to the nations.

⁵See, you will send for a nation of which you had no knowledge, and those who had no knowledge of you will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, and because of the Holy One of Israel, for he has given you glory.

⁶Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:

⁷Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him.

⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts, or your ways my ways, says the Lord.

⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹⁰For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and does not go back again, but gives water to the earth, and makes it fertile, giving seed to the planter, and bread for food;

¹¹So will my word be which goes out of my mouth: it will not come back to me with nothing done, but it will give effect to my purpose, and do that for which I have sent it.

¹²For you will go out with joy, and be guided in peace: the mountains and the hills will make melody before you, and all the trees of the fields will make sounds of joy.

¹³In place of the thorn will come up the fir-tree, and in place of the blackberry the myrtle: and it will be to the Lord for a name, for an eternal sign which will not be cut off.