Isaiah 51

¹ Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry pit from which you were hewn.

² Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave birth to you. For I called him when he was alone, and I blessed him and made him many.

³ For the LORD has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her ruins and made her wilderness like Eden, her desert plain like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

⁴ Pay attention to me, my people; listen to me, my nation. For instruction will go out from me, and I will establish my justice as a light to the peoples.

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

⁶ Lift your eyes to the heavens and look at the earth below: the heavens will dissolve like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die in the same way. But my salvation will last forever, and my righteousness will never be broken.

⁷ Listen to me, you who know righteousness, people who have my instruction in your hearts: Do not fear people's insults or be shaken by their mockery.

⁸ For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, and my salvation through every generation.

⁹ Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, arm of the LORD! Awake as in days of old, in generations long past. Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces and pierced the dragon?

¹⁰ Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, and made a road through the depths of the sea for the redeemed to cross?

¹¹ Those whom the LORD has set free will return and come to Zion with singing, and everlasting joy will be upon their heads. Joy and gladness will overtake them; sorrow and sighing will flee.

¹² I, I myself am the one who comforts you. Who are you, that you fear mortal people, human beings who are made like grass?

¹³ And you have forgotten the LORD, who made you, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. All day long you live in terror of the oppressor's fury, as he prepares to destroy. Where is the oppressor's fury?

¹⁴ The one who is bent over will soon be set free; he will not die in the pit, and he will not lack bread.

¹⁵ I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea and makes its waves roar; the LORD of Armies is his name.

¹⁶ I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand, to plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and to say to Zion, “You are my people.”

¹⁷ Awake, awake, rise up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; you have drunk and drained the bowl of the cup that makes people stagger.

¹⁸ Of all the children she gave birth to, there is no one to guide her; of all the children she raised, there is no one to take her by the hand.

¹⁹ These two things have happened to you: who will grieve for you? Destruction and ruin, famine and sword—who will comfort you?

²⁰ Your children have fainted; they lie at the head of every street, like an antelope caught in a net, filled with the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

²¹ So hear this, you afflicted one, drunk, but not with wine.

²² This is what your Lord, the LORD, your God, who defends his people's cause, says: “Look, I have taken from your hand the cup that makes people stagger, the bowl of the cup of my fury. You will never drink from it again.

²³ I will put it into the hands of those who afflict you, who said to you, ‘Bend down so we can pass over you.’ And you made your back like the ground, like a street for those passing over you.”

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