Isaiah 51:1-23
51 Listen to me, you that are aiming at rectitude, trying to find Jehovah: look at the rock you were quarried from and at the hollow of the pit you were dug out of;
2 * look at your father Abraham and at Sarah who gave you birth, that I called him when he was one man and I blessed him and made many of him.
3 * For Jehovah has brought cheer to Sion, cheer to all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like ʽEden and her desert part like Jehovah’s garden: rejoicing and merrymaking shall be found in it, thanksgivings and the sound of music.
4 Listen for what I say, my people; my folk, turn your ear to me. For instructions will come out from me, and my law, for a light of peoples.
5 A moment, and my equity is at hand; my salvation goes out, and my arms do justice for peoples; foreign coasts are hoping for me and waiting for my arm.
6 Raise your eyes to the sky, and look at the earth below: for skies will break up like smoke and the earth will wear out like a blanket, but my salvation will last forever, and my equity will never break down.
7 Listen to me, you who know the right, people who have my instructions in your hearts: do not be afraid of men’s slurs nor dismayed at their insults;
8 for moths will eat them off like a blanket and grubs will eat them off like wool, but my equity will last forever and my salvation for generation after generation.
9 * Rouse up, rouse up, put on strength, arm of Jehovah! rouse as in ancient days, in olden generations! was it not you that mangled Rahab, that pierced Dragon?
10 was it not you that dried off the sea, the water of the great deep; that made ocean depths a road to let rescued men pass?
11 And Jehovah’s ransomed shall come back and come to Sion with caroling, with eternal gladness on their heads; gladness and rejoicing shall arrive, sorrow and moaning shall take flight.
12 * I, I am the one that is comforting you; who are you that you are afraid of a man who is to die, and a human being who is to be made hay of,
13 and have forgotten Jehovah your Maker, stretcher of skies and founder of earth, and are all day in constant terror of the oppressor’s rage? when he has made ready to ravage, where is the oppressor’s rage?
14 * a man tied down has speedily been unfastened, and shall not die for perdition nor find his bread running short.
15 But I your God Jehovah am he who stirs the sea and its waves roar, whose name is Jehovah of Armies,
16 and have placed my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, planting heavens and founding earth and saying to Sion “You are my people.”
17 Rouse, rouse yourself, stand up, Jerusalem, you who at Jehovah’s hand have drunk the cup of his ire, have drunk dry the staggering-goblet,
18 you that of all the children you bore have nobody to show you the way, of all the children you reared have nobody to take you by the hand;
19 two things there are that have befallen you—who shall lament for you? rapine and ruin, and starvation and sword—who shall comfort you?
20 Your sons have collapsed, they are lying at the tops of all the streets like an antelope in a net, full as they are of Jehovah’s ire, of your God’s rebuke.
21 So hear this, wretched one, drunken but not with wine:
22 says your Lord Jehovah, your God who takes up his people’s cause, Here I have taken out of your hands the staggering-cup, and you shall never again drink the goblet of my ire;
23 * and I will place it in the hands of those who made you trouble and ground you down, who said to your form “Down, let us through” and you made your back like the earth and like the street for those who were to pass over.
Footnotes
^ 51:2 Lit. I called (summoned) him one and
^ 51:3 Var. adds sorrow and moaning have taken flight
^ 51:9 Or dragons
^ 51:12 Conj. of whom are you afraid? of a man who is to die, and a human being who is to be made hay of! and you have
^ 51:14 (first part) Unc., susp.
^ 51:23 Var. omits and ground you down
