Isa 40
1
Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God.
2
Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry to her, that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of YHWH`s hand double for all
her sins.
3
The voice of one that cries, Prepare you in the wilderness the way of YHWH; 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 YHWH shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for
the mouth of YHWH has spoken it.
6
The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass,
and all its goodliness is as the flower of the field.
7
The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of YHWH 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 you that tell good tidings to Zion, get you up on a high mountain; O you that tell
good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid;
say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your God!
10
Behold, the Lord YHWH 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 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 directed the Spirit of YHWH, or being his counselor has 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 takes up the isles as a very little thing.
16
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts 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 you liken God? or what likeness will you 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 to him a skillful workman to set up a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21
Have you not known? have yet not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning?
have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22
[It is] he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are
as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out
as a tent to dwell in;
23
that brings princes to nothing; that 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 you 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, that brings out their host
by number; he calls" them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that
he is strong in power, not one is lacking.
27
Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from YHWH, and the justice
[due] to me is passed away from my God?
28
Have you not known? have you not heard? The everlasting God, YHWH, the Creator of
the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his
understanding.
29
He gives power to the faint; and to him whom has no might he increases strength.
30
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31
but they that wait for YHWH 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.