Isaiah 51-53

Isaiah 51

¹Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Jehovah: look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged.

²Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for I called him when he was alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him.

³For Jehovah shall comfort Zion, he shall comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah: gladness and joy shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of song.

⁴Listen unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will establish my judgment for a light of the peoples.

⁵My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the peoples: the isles shall wait for me, and in mine arm shall they trust.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.

⁷Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their revilings.

⁸For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah; awake, as in the days of old, as in the generations of passed ages. Is it not thou that hath hewn Rahab in pieces, and pierced the monster?

¹⁰Is it not thou that dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

¹¹So the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with singing; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

¹²I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou fearest a man that shall die, and the son of man that shall become as grass;

¹³and forgettest Jehovah thy Maker, who hath stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and thou art afraid continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepareth to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?

¹⁴He that is bowed down shall speedily be loosed, and he shall not die in the pit, nor shall his bread fail.

¹⁵And I am Jehovah thy God, who raiseth the sea, so that its waves roar: Jehovah of hosts is his name.

¹⁶And I have put my words in thy mouth, and covered thee with the shadow of my hand, to plant the heavens, and to lay the foundations of the earth, and to say unto Zion, Thou art my people.

¹⁷Arouse thyself, arouse thyself, stand up, Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of Jehovah the cup of his fury. Thou hast drunk, hast drained out the goblet-cup of bewilderment:

¹⁸-- there is none to guide her among all the children that she hath brought forth; neither is there any to take her by the hand of all the children that she hath brought up.

¹⁹These two things are come unto thee; who will bemoan thee? -- desolation and destruction, and famine and sword: how shall I comfort thee?

²⁰Thy children have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an oryx in a net: they are full of the fury of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God.

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

²²thus saith thy Lord, Jehovah, and thy God, who pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I take out of thy hand the cup of bewilderment, the goblet-cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:

²³and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; who have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over.

Isaiah 52

¹Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.

²Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, captive daughter of Zion.

³For thus saith Jehovah: Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money.

⁴For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and Assyria oppressed them without cause;

⁵and now, what have I here, saith Jehovah, that my people hath been taken away for nought? They that rule over them make them to howl, saith Jehovah; and continually all the day is my name scorned.

⁶Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am HE, that saith, Here am I.

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that announceth glad tidings, that publisheth peace; that announceth glad tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

⁸-- The voice of thy watchmen, they lift up the voice, they sing aloud together; for they shall see eye to eye, when Jehovah shall bring again Zion.

⁹Break forth, sing aloud together, waste places of Jerusalem; for Jehovah comforteth his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.

¹⁰Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

¹¹-- Depart, depart, go out from thence, touch not what is unclean; go out of the midst of her, be ye clean, that bear the vessels of Jehovah.

¹²For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for Jehovah will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear-guard.

¹³Behold, my servant shall deal prudently; he shall be exalted and be lifted up, and be very high.

¹⁴As many were astonished at thee -- his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the children of men

¹⁵-- so shall he astonish many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for what had not been told them shall they see, and what they had not heard shall they consider.

Isaiah 53

¹Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?

²For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor lordliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

³He is despised and left alone of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their faces; -- despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴Surely *he* hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we, we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth.

⁸He was taken from oppression and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

⁹And men appointed his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected him to suffering. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand.

¹¹He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness; and *he* shall bear their iniquities.

¹²Therefore will I assign him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and was reckoned with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.