Isaiah 51

1 Listen to me, you who follow what is just and who seek the Lord. Pay attention to the rock from which you have been hewn, and to the walls of the pit from which you have been dug.

Listen 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.

2 Pay attention to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who bore you. For I called him alone, and I blessed him, and I multiplied him.

Look to Abraam your father, and to Sarrha that bore you: for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him.

3 Therefore, the Lord will console Zion, and he will console all its ruins. And he will turn her desert into a place of delights, and her wilderness into a garden of the Lord. Gladness and rejoicing will be found in her, thanksgiving and a voice of praise.

And now I will comfort you, O Sion: 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 exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.

4 Pay attention to me, my people, and listen to me, my tribes. For a law will go forth from me, and my judgment will rest as a light for the nations.

Hear me, hear me, my people; and you kings, listen to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment [shall be] for a light of the nations.

5 My just one is near. My savior has gone forth. And my arms will judge the people. The islands will hope in me, and they will patiently wait for my arm.

My righteousness speedily draws near, and my salvation shall go forth as light, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

6 Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look down to the earth below. For the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will be worn away like a garment, and its inhabitants will pass away in like manner. But my salvation will be forever, and my justice will not fail.

Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my righteousness shall not fail.

7 Listen to me, you who know what is just, my people who have my law in their heart. Do not be afraid of disgrace among men, and do not dread their blasphemies.

Hear 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.

8 For the worm will consume them like a garment, and the moth will devour them like wool. But my salvation will be forever, and my justice will be from generation to generation.

For 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 for ever, and my salvation for all generations.

9 Rise up, Rise up! Clothe yourself in strength, O arm of the Lord! Rise up as in the days of antiquity, as in generations long past. Have you not struck the arrogant one and wounded the dragon?

Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, and put on the strength of your arm; awake as in the early time, as the ancient generation.

10 Have not you dried up the sea, the waters of the great abyss, and turned the depths of the sea into a road, so that the delivered could cross over it?

Are you not it 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?

11 And now, those who have been redeemed by the Lord will return. And they will arrive in Zion, praising. And everlasting rejoicing will be upon their heads. They will take hold of gladness and rejoicing. Anguish and mourning will flee away.

for by [the help of] the Lord they shall return, and come to Sion with joy and everlasting exultation, for praise and joy shall come upon their head: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away.

12 It is I, I myself, who will console you. Who are you that you would be afraid of a mortal man, and of a son of man, who will wither like the grass?

I, [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 are withered as grass.

13 And have you forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who extended the heavens, and who founded the earth? And have you been in constant dread, all day long, at the face of his fury, of the one who afflicted you and who had prepared to destroy you? Where is the fury of the oppressor now?

And 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 counselled to take you away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted you?

14 Advancing quickly, he will arrive to be revealed, and he will not kill unto utter destruction, nor will his bread fail.

For in your deliverance he shall not halt, nor wait;

15 But I am the Lord, your God, who stirs up the sea, and who makes the waves swell. The Lord of hosts is my name.

for I am your God, that troubles the sea, and causes the waves thereof to roar: the Lord of hosts is my name.

16 I have placed my words in your mouth, and I have protected you in the shadow of my hand, so that you might plant the heavens, and found the earth, and so that you might say to Zion, “You are my people.”

I will put my words into your mouth, and I will shelter you under the shadow of mine hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and [the Lord] shall say to Sion, You are my people.

17 Lift up, Lift up! Arise, O Jerusalem! You drank, from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath. You drank, even to the bottom of the cup of deep sleep. And you were given to drink, all the way to the dregs.

Awake, 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:

18 There is no one who can uphold her, out of all the sons whom she has conceived. And there is no one who would take her by the hand, out of all the sons whom she has raised.

and 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 has reared.

19 There are two things which have happened to you. Who will be saddened over you? There is devastation and destruction, and famine and sword. Who will console you?

Therefore these things are against you; who shall sympathize with you in your grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort you?

20 Your sons have been cast out. They have slept at the head of all the roads, and they have been ensnared like a gazelle. They have been filled by the indignation of the Lord, by the rebuke of your God.

Your 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.

21 Therefore, listen to this, O poor little ones, and you who have been inebriated, but not by wine.

Therefore hear, you afflicted one, and drunken, [but] not with wine;

22 Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord, and your God, who will fight on behalf of his people: Behold, I have taken the cup of deep sleep from your hand. You shall no longer drink from the bottom of the cup of my indignation.

thus 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 any more.

23 And I will set it in the hand of those who have humiliated you, and who have said to your soul: “Bow down, so that we pass over.” And you placed your body on the ground, as a path for them to pass over.

And 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 did level your body with the ground to them passing by without.