Isaiah 26

1 In that day, this canticle will be sung in the land of Judah. Within it will be set the city of our strength: Zion, a savior, a wall with a bulwark.

2 Open the gates, and let the just people who guard the truth enter.

3 The old error has gone away. You will serve peace: peace, for we have hoped in you.

4 You have trusted in the Lord for all eternity, in the Lord God almighty forever.

5 For he will bend down those living in the heights. He will bring low the lofty city. He will lower it, even to the ground. He will tear it down, even to the dust.

6 The foot will tread it down: the feet of the poor, the steps of the indigent.

7 The path of the just is upright; the difficult path of the just is right to walk in.

8 And in the path of your judgments, O Lord, we have endured for you. Your name and your remembrance are the desire of the soul.

9 My soul has desired you in the night. But I will also watch for you with my spirit, in my inmost heart, from the morning. When you accomplish your judgments upon the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn justice.

10 Let us take pity on the impious one, but he will not learn justice. In the land of the holy ones, he has done iniquity, and so he will not see the glory of the Lord.

11 Lord, let your hand be exalted, and let them not see it. May the envious people see and be confounded. And may fire devour your enemies.

12 Lord, you will give us peace. For all our works have been wrought for us by you.

13 O Lord our God, other lords have possessed us apart from you, but in you alone let us remember your name.

14 Let not the dead live; let not the giants rise up again. For this reason, you have visited and destroyed them, and you have perished all remembrance of them.

15 You have been lenient to the people, O Lord, lenient to the people. But have you been glorified? You have removed all the limits of the earth.

16 Lord, they have sought you in anguish. Your doctrine was with them, amid the tribulation of murmuring.

17 Like a woman who has conceived and is approaching the time for delivery, who, in anguish, cries out in her pains, so have we become before your face, O Lord.

18 We have conceived, and it is as if we were in labor, but we have given birth to wind. We have not brought forth salvation on the earth. For this reason, the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen.

19 Your dead shall live. My slain will rise again. Be awakened, and give praise, you who live in the dust! For your dew is the dew of the light, and you shall be dragged down to the land of the giants, to ruination.

20 Go, my people! Enter your chambers. Close your doors behind you. Conceal yourselves for a very brief time, until the indignation has passed over you.

21 For behold, the Lord will go forth from his place, so that he may visit the iniquity of each inhabitant of the earth against him. And the earth will reveal its blood, and it will no longer cover its slain.