- 1
- Keep silence before me, islands;
and let the peoples renew [their] strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us draw near together to judgment.
- 2
- Who raised up from the east him whom righteousness calleth to its foot?
He gave the nations before him, and caused him to have dominion over kings; he gave them as dust to his sword, as driven stubble to his bow.
- 3
- He pursued them, he passed on in safety, by a way he had never come with his feet.
- 4
- Who hath wrought and done [it], calling the generations from the beginning?
I, Jehovah, the first; and with the last, I [am] HE.
- 5
- The isles saw [it], and feared;
the ends of the earth trembled: they drew near, and came.
- 6
- They helped every one his neighbour, and [each] said to his brother, Take courage.
- 7
- And the artizan encouraged the founder, he that smootheth [with] the hammer him that smiteth on the anvil, saying of the soldering, It is good;
and he fasteneth it with nails, that it be not moved.
- 8
- But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend
- 9
- — thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from the extremities thereof, and to whom I said, Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee and not rejected thee,
- 10
- — Fear not, for I [am] with thee;
be not dismayed, for I [am] thy God: I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
- 11
- Lo, all that are incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded;
they that strive with thee shall be as nothing, and shall perish.
- 12
- Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them — them that contend with thee;
they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.
- 13
- For I, Jehovah, thy God, hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not;
I will help thee.
- 14
- Fear not, thou worm Jacob, ye men of Israel;
I will help thee, saith Jehovah, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
- 15
- Behold, I have made of thee a new sharp threshing instrument having double teeth: thou shalt thresh and beat small the mountains, and shalt make the hills as chaff;
- 16
- thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them;
and thou shalt rejoice in Jehovah, thou shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.
- 17
- The afflicted and the needy seek water, and there is none;
their tongue faileth for thirst: I, Jehovah, will answer them, [I], the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
- 18
- I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness into a pool of water, and the dry land into water-springs.
- 19
- I will give in the wilderness the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oleaster;
I will set in the desert the cypress, pine, and box-tree together;
- 20
- that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.
- 21
- Produce your cause, saith Jehovah;
bring forward your arguments, saith the King of Jacob.
- 22
- Let them bring them forward, and declare to us what shall happen: shew the former things, what they are, that we may give attention to them, and know the end of them;
— or let us hear things to come:
- 23
- declare the things that are to happen hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods;
yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be astonished, and behold it together.
- 24
- Behold, ye are less than nothing, and your work is of nought;
an abomination is he that chooseth you. …
- 25
- I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come, — from the rising of the sun, he who will call upon my name;
and he shall come upon princes as on mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay.
- 26
- Who hath declared [it] from the beginning, that we may know?
and beforetime, that we may say, [It is] right? Indeed, there is none that declareth; no, none that sheweth; no, none that heareth your words.
- 27
- The first, [I said] to Zion, Behold, behold them!
and to Jerusalem, I will give one that bringeth glad tidings.
- 28
- And I beheld, and there was no man;
even among them, — and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
- 29
- Behold, they are all vanity, their works are nought, their molten images are wind and emptiness.
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