Isaiah 51

1Hearken to Me, you that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord; look to the solid rock, which you have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which you have dug. 2Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him. 3And now I will comfort you, O Zion; and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as a garden, and her western places as the garden of the Lord; they shall find in her gladness and exaltation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise. 4Hear Me, hear Me, My people; and you kings, hearken to Me; for a law shall proceed from Me, and My judgment shall be for a light of the nations. 5My righteousness speedily draws near, and My salvation shall go forth as light, and on My arm shall the Gentiles trust; the isles shall wait for Me, and on My arm shall they trust. 6Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath; for the sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner; but My righteousness shall not fail. 7Hear Me, you that know judgment, the people in whose heart is My law; fear not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their contempt. 8For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth, so shall they be consumed; but My righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation for all generations. 9Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, and put on the strength of your arm; awake as in the early time, as the ancient generation. 10Are you not the One that dried the sea, the water, even the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered and redeemed? 11For by the help of the Lord they shall return, and come to Zion with joy and everlasting exaltation, for praise and joy shall come upon their head; pain, grief, and groaning have fled away. 12I, even I, am He that comforts you; consider who you are, that you were afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who have withered as grass. 13And you have forgotten God who made you, who made the sky and founded the earth; and you were continually afraid because of the wrath of him that afflicted you; for whereas he counseled to take you away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted you? 14For in your deliverance he shall not halt, nor tarry; 15for I am your God, that troubles the sea, and causes its waves to roar; the Lord of hosts is My name. 16I will put My words into your mouth, and I will shelter you under the shadow of My hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth; and the Lord shall say to Zion, You are My people. 17Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury; for you have drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of wrath; 18and there was none to comfort you of all the children whom you bore; and there was none to take hold of your hand, not even of all the children whom you have reared. 19Wherefore these things are against you; who shall sympathize with you in your grief? Downfall and destruction, famine and sword; who shall comfort you? 20Your sons are the perplexed ones, that sleep at the top of every street as a half-boiled beet; they that are full of the anger of the Lord, caused to faint by the Lord God. 21Therefore hear, you afflicted one, and drunken, but not with wine; 22thus says the Lord God that judges His people: Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of calamity, the cup of My wrath; and you shall not drink it anymore. 23And I will give it into the hands of them that injured you, and them that afflicted you; who said to your soul, Bow down, that we may pass over; and you laid your body to the ground to them passing by outside.
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