1 | Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. |
2 | Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she hath received of Jehovah`s hand double for all her sins. |
3 | The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah; make level 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 uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain: |
5 | and the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. |
6 | The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. |
7 | The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. |
8 | The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever. |
9 | O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto 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 that have their young. |
12 | Who hath 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 hath directed the Spirit of Jehovah, or being his counsellor hath taught him? |
14 | With whom took he 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 taketh up the isles as a very little thing. |
16 | And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof 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 unto him? |
19 | The image, a workman hath cast [it], and the goldsmith overlayeth it with gold, and casteth [for it] silver chains. |
20 | He that is too impoverished for [such] an oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a skilful workman to set up a graven image, that shall not be moved. |
21 | Have ye not known? have yet not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? |
22 | [It is] he that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in; |
23 | that bringeth princes to nothing; that maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. |
24 | Yea, they have not been planted; yea, they have not been sown; yea, their stock hath not taken root in the earth: moreover he bloweth upon them, and they wither, and the whirlwind taketh them away as stubble. |
25 | To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal [to him]? saith the Holy One. |
26 | Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking. |
27 | Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from Jehovah, and the justice [due] to me is passed away from my God? |
28 | Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. |
29 | He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might he increaseth strength. |
30 | Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: |
31 | but they that 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. |