Israel the LORD's Servant

491 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples from afar. Jehovah hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. 2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, he hath concealed me under the shadow of his hand, and he hath made me a polished shaft: in his quiver hath he hidden me. 3 And he said unto me, Thou art my servant, Israel, in whom I will glorify myself. 4 —And I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God. 5 And now, saith Jehovah, that formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I should bring Jacob again to him; (though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorified in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God shall be my strength;) 6 —and he saith, It is a small thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I have even given thee for a light of the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

7 Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to the servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall worship, because of Jehovah who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee.

The Restoration of Zion Promised

8 Thus saith Jehovah: In a time of acceptance have I answered thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the land, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; 9 saying to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pasture shall be on all bare hills. 10 They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them will lead them, and by the springs of water will he guide them. 11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be raised up. 12 Behold, these shall come from afar; and behold, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.

13 Shout, ye heavens; and be joyful, thou earth; and break forth into singing, ye mountains: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted ones. 14 But Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. 15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even these forget, but I will not forget thee. 16 Lo, I have graven thee upon the palms of [my] hands; thy walls are continually before me. 17 Thy sons shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that laid thee waste shall go forth from thee.

18 Lift up thine eyes round about and behold: they all gather themselves together, they come to thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt indeed clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and bind them on as a bride doth. 19 For [in] thy waste and thy desolate places, and thy destroyed land, thou shalt even now be too straitened by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 20 The children of thy bereavement shall yet say in thine ears, The place is too narrow for me: make room for me, that I may dwell. 21 And thou shalt say in thy heart, Who hath borne me these, seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, an exile, and driven about? and who hath brought up these? behold, I was left alone; these, where were they? 22 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and set up my banner to the peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in [their] bosom, and thy daughters shall be carried upon the shoulder. 23 And kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their princesses thy nursing-mothers: they shall bow down to thee with the face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I [am] Jehovah; for they shall not be ashamed who wait on me.

24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? and shall he that is rightfully captive be delivered? 25 For thus saith Jehovah: Even the captive of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; and I will strive with him that striveth with thee, and I will save thy children. 26 And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with new wine. And all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, [am] thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

The LORD Helps Those Who Trust in Him

501 Thus saith Jehovah: Where is the bill of your mother's divorce, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, through your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away. 2 Wherefore did I come, and there was no man? I called, and there was none to answer? Is my hand at all shortened that I cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make rivers a wilderness; their fish stink because there is no water, and die for thirst. 3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

4 The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed. 5 The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not away back. 6 I gave my back to smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. 7 But the Lord Jehovah will help me: therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. 8 He is near that justifieth me: who will contend with me? let us stand together; who is mine adverse party? let him draw near unto me. 9 Behold, the Lord Jehovah will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? Behold, they all shall grow old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.

10 Who is among you that feareth Jehovah, that hearkeneth to the voice of his servant? he that walketh in darkness, and hath no light,—let him confide in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself upon his God. 11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and among the sparks [that] ye have kindled. This shall ye have of my hand: ye shall lie down in sorrow.

Words of Comfort to Zion

511 Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Jehovah: look unto the rock [whence] ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit [whence] ye were digged. 2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for I called him when he was alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him. 3 For Jehovah shall comfort Zion, he shall comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah: gladness and joy shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of song.

4 Listen unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will establish my judgment for a light of the peoples. 5 My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the peoples: the isles shall wait for me, and in mine arm shall they trust. 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. 7 Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their revilings. 8 For the moth shall eat them up 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.

9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah; awake, as in the days of old, [as in] the generations of passed ages. Is it not thou that hath hewn Rahab in pieces, [and] pierced the monster? 10 Is it not thou that dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? 11 So the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with singing; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 12 I, [even] I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou fearest a man that shall die, and the son of man that shall become as grass; 13 and forgettest Jehovah thy Maker, who hath stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and thou art afraid continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepareth to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor? 14 He that is bowed down shall speedily be loosed, and he shall not die in the pit, nor shall his bread fail. 15 And I am Jehovah thy God, who raiseth the sea, so that its waves roar: Jehovah of hosts is his name. 16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and covered thee with the shadow of my hand, to plant the heavens, and to lay the foundations of the earth, and to say unto Zion, Thou art my people.

17 Arouse thyself, arouse thyself, stand up, Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of Jehovah the cup of his fury. Thou hast drunk, hast drained out the goblet-cup of bewilderment: 18 —there is none to guide her among all the children that she hath brought forth; neither is there any to take her by the hand of all the children that she hath brought up. 19 These two [things] are come unto thee; who will bemoan thee?—desolation and destruction, and famine and sword: how shall I comfort thee? 20 Thy children have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an oryx in a net: they are full of the fury of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God. 21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: 22 thus saith thy Lord, Jehovah, and thy God, who pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I take out of thy hand the cup of bewilderment, the goblet-cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: 23 and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; who have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over.

God Will Deliver Zion from Captivity

521 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. 2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, captive daughter of Zion. 3 For thus saith Jehovah: Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money. 4 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and Assyria oppressed them without cause; 5 and now, what have I here, saith Jehovah, that my people hath been taken away for nought? They that rule over them make them to howl, saith Jehovah; and continually all the day is my name scorned. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore [they shall know] in that day that I [am] HE, that saith, Here am I.

7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that announceth glad tidings, that publisheth peace; that announceth glad tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! 8 —The voice of thy watchmen, they lift up the voice, they sing aloud together; for they shall see eye to eye, when Jehovah shall bring again Zion. 9 Break forth, sing aloud together, waste places of Jerusalem; for Jehovah comforteth his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. 10 Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. 11 —Depart, depart, go out from thence, touch not what is unclean; go out of the midst of her, be ye clean, that bear the vessels of Jehovah. 12 For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for Jehovah will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear-guard.

The Suffering of the LORD's Servant

13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently; he shall be exalted and be lifted up, and be very high. 14 As many were astonished at thee—his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the children of men 15 —so shall he astonish many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for what had not been told them shall they see, and what they had not heard shall they consider.

531 Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor lordliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and left alone of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom [men] hide their faces;—despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we, we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth. 8 He was taken from oppression and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9 And [men] appointed his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth.

10 Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected [him] to suffering. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. 11 He shall see of [the fruit of] the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness; and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore will I assign him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and was reckoned with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.