Isaiah 40

1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, says your God.

2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry to her, that her warfare has been completed, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins.

3 The voice of a man crying out in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. And the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places smooth.

5 And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of Jehovah has spoken it.

6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of it is as the flower of the field.

7 The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of Jehovah blows upon it. Surely the people is grass.

8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever.

9 O thou who tell good news to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain. O thou who tell good news to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up, be not afraid, say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your God!

10 Behold, the lord Jehovah will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and will gently lead those who have their young.

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

13 Who has known the mind of Jehovah, or being his counselor has taught him?

14 With whom did he take counsel. And who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice. And taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?

15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he takes up the isles as a very little thing.

16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts of it sufficient for a burnt offering.

17 All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity.

18 To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare to him?

19 The image, a workman has cast it, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains.

20 He who is too impoverished for such an oblation chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks for him a skilful workman to set up a graven image that shall not be moved.

21 Have ye not known? Have yet not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in,

23 who brings rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth as vanity.

24 Yea, they have not been planted. Yea, they have not been sown. Yea, their stock has not taken root in the earth. Moreover he blows upon them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.

25 To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal to him? says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their host by number. He calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might. And because he is strong in power, not one is lacking.

27 Why do thou say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from Jehovah. And the justice due to me is passed away from my God?

28 Have thou not known? Have thou not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, nor is weary. There is no searching of his understanding.

29 He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might he increases strength.

30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.

31 But those who wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run, and not be weary. They shall walk, and not faint.