51:1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that
seek the LORD: look to the rock [whence] ye are hewn, and to
the hole of the pit [whence] ye are digged.
51:2 Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah [that] bore you:
for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
51:3 For the LORD will comfort Zion: he will comfort all her
waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and
her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall
be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
51:4 Hearken to me, my people; and give ear to me, O my nation:
for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to
rest for a light of the people.
51:5 My righteousness [is] near; my salvation is gone forth, and
my arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me,
and on my arm shall they trust.
51:6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth
beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the
earth shall become old like a garment, and its inhabitants
shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever,
and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
51:7 Hearken to me, ye that know righteousness, the people in
whose heart [is] my law; fear ye not the reproach of men,
neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
51:8 For the moth shall eat them like a garment, and the worm
shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for
ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
51:9 Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O arm of the LORD;
awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. [Art]
thou not that which hath cut Rahab, [and] wounded the dragon?
51:10 [Art] thou not that which hath dried the sea, the waters
of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way
for the ransomed to pass over?
51:11 Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come
with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy [shall be] upon their
head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and mourning
shall flee away.
51:12 I, [even] I, [am] he that comforteth you: who [art] thou,
that thou shouldest be afraid of a man [that] shall die, and of
the son of man [who] shall be made [as] grass;
51:13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched
forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and
hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the
oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where [is] the
fury of the oppressor?
51:14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and
that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should
fail.
51:15 But I [am] the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose
waves roared: The LORD of hosts [is] his name.
51:16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered
thee in the shade of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and
lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, Thou [art]
my people.
51:17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drank at
the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drank the
dregs of the cup of trembling, [and] wrung [them] out.
51:18 [There is] none to guide her among all the sons [whom] she
hath brought forth; neither [is there any] that taketh her by
the hand of all the sons [that] she hath brought up.
51:19 These two [things] have come to thee; who shall be sorry
for thee? desolation, and destruction, and famine, and the
sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
51:20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the
streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of
the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
51:21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but
not with wine:
51:22 Thus saith thy Lord Jehovah, and thy God [that] pleadeth
the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thy hand
the cup of trembling, [even] the dregs of the cup of my fury;
thou shalt no more drink it again:
51:23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee;
who have said to thy soul, Prostrate thyself, that we may go
over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the
street, to them that went over.
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