Isaiah 39

1 At that time when Merodach-baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon, heard that Hezekiah had recovered from his sickness, he sent letters and gifts to him.
2 Hezekiah was pleased at this, and therefore showed the messengers his treasury, the silver and gold, the spices and fine oil, his whole armory, and everything that was in his storerooms; there was nothing in his house or in his whole realm that he did not show them.
3 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him, What did these men say to you? Where did they come from? Hezekiah answered, They came to me from a distant land, from Babylon.
4 What did they see in your house? he asked. Hezekiah replied, They saw everything in my house; there is nothing in my storerooms that I did not show them.
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts:
6 Behold, the days shall come when all that is in your house, and everything that your fathers have stored up until this day, shall be carried off to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the LORD.
7 Some of your own bodily descendants shall be taken and made servants in the palace of the king of Babylon.
8 Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, The word of the LORD which you have spoken is favorable. For he thought, There will be peace and security in my lifetime.

Isaiah 40

1 Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
4 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.
5 Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
6 A voice says, Cry out! I answer, What shall I cry out? All mankind is grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it. (So then, the people is the grass.)
8 Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of our God stands forever.
9 Go up onto a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; Cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God!
10 Here comes with power the Lord GOD, who rules by his strong arm; Here is his reward with him, his recompense before him.
11 Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, Carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.
12 Who has cupped in his hand the waters of the sea, and marked off the heavens with a span? Who has held in a measure the dust of the earth, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the spirit of the LORD, or has instructed him as his counselor?
14 Whom did he consult to gain knowledge? Who taught him the path of judgment, or showed him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations count as a drop in the bucket, as dust on the scales; the coastlands weigh no more than powder.
16 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor its animals be enough for holocausts.
17 Before him all the nations are as nought, as nothing and void he accounts them.
18 To whom can you liken God? With what equal can you confront him?
19 An idol, cast by a craftsman, which the smith plates with gold and fits with silver chains?
20 Mulberry wood, the choice portion which a skilled craftsman picks out for himself, Choosing timber that will not rot, to set up an idol that will not be unsteady?
21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Was it not foretold you from the beginning? Have you not understood? Since the earth was founded
22 He sits enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; He stretches out the heavens like a veil, spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
23 He brings princes to nought and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
24 Scarcely are they planted or sown, scarcely is their stem rooted in the earth, When he breathes upon them and they wither, and the stormwind carries them away like straw.
25 To whom can you liken me as an equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these: He leads out their army and numbers them, calling them all by name. By his great might and the strength of his power not one of them is missing!
27 Why, O Jacob, do you say, and declare, O Israel, My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God?
28 Do you not know or have you not heard? The LORD is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint nor grow weary, and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
29 He gives strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound.
30 Though young men faint and grow weary, and youths stagger and fall,
31 They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles' wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.

Isaiah 41

1 Keep silence before me, O coastlands; you peoples, wait for my words! Let them draw near and speak; let us come together for judgment.
2 Who has stirred up from the East the champion of justice, and summoned him to be his attendant? To him he delivers the nations and subdues the kings; With his sword he reduces them to dust, with his bow, to driven straw.
3 He pursues them, passing on without loss, by a path his feet do not even tread.
4 Who has performed these deeds? He who has called forth the generations since the beginning. I, the LORD, am the first, and with the last I will also be.
5 The coastlands see, and fear; the ends of the earth tremble: these things are near, they come to pass.
6 One man helps another, one says to the other, Keep on!
7 The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, the one who beats with the hammer, him who strikes on the anvil; He says the soldering is good, and he fastens it with nails to steady it.
8 But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham my friend--
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and summoned from its far-off places, You whom I have called my servant, whom I have chosen and will not cast off--
10 Fear not, I am with you; be not dismayed; I am your God. I will strengthen you, and help you, and uphold you with my right hand of justice.
11 Yes, all shall be put to shame and disgrace who vent their anger against you; Those shall perish and come to nought who offer resistance.
12 You shall seek out, but shall not find, those who strive against you; They shall be as nothing at all who do battle with you.
13 For I am the LORD, your God, who grasp your right hand; It is I who say to you, Fear not, I will help you.
14 Fear not, O worm Jacob, O maggot Israel; I will help you, says the LORD; your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15 I will make of you a threshing sledge, sharp, new, and double-edged, To thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff.
16 When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off and the storm shall scatter them. But you shall rejoice in the LORD, and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17 The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain, their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18 I will open up rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the broad valleys; I will turn the desert into a marshland, and the dry ground into springs of water.
19 I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive; I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine,
20 That all may see and know, observe and understand, That the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21 Present your case, says the LORD; bring forward your reasons, says the King of Jacob.
22 Let them come near and foretell to us what it is that shall happen! What are the things of long ago? Tell us, that we may reflect on them And know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come!
23 Foretell the things that shall come afterward, that we may know that you are gods! Do something, good or evil, that will put us in awe and in fear.
24 Why, you are nothing and your work is nought! To choose you is an abomination.
25 I have stirred up one from the north, and he comes; from the east I summon him by name; He shall trample the rulers down like red earth, as the potter treads the clay.
26 Who announced this from the beginning, that we might know; beforehand, that we might say it is true? Not one of you foretold it, not one spoke; no one heard you say,
27 The first news for Zion: they are coming now, or, For Jerusalem I will pick out a bearer of the glad tidings.
28 When I look, there is not one, no one of them to give counsel, to make an answer when I question them.
29 Ah, all of them are nothing, their works are nought, their idols are empty wind!

Isaiah 42

1 Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
2 Not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
4 Until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
5 Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, Who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it:
6 I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations,
7 To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
8 I am the LORD, this is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.
9 See, the earlier things have come to pass, new ones I now foretell; Before they spring into being, I announce them to you.
10 Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the coastlands, and those who dwell in them.
11 Let the steppe and its cities cry out, the villages where Kedar dwells; Let the inhabitants of Sela exult, and shout from the top of the mountains.
12 Let them give glory to the LORD, and utter his praise in the coastlands.
13 The LORD goes forth like a hero, like a warrior he stirs up his ardor; He shouts out his battle cry, against his enemies he shows his might:
14 I have looked away, and kept silence, I have said nothing, holding myself in; But now, I cry out as a woman in labor, gasping and panting.
15 I will lay waste mountains and hills, all their herbage I will dry up; I will turn the rivers into marshes, and the marshes I will dry up.
16 I will lead the blind on their journey; by paths unknown I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them, and make crooked ways straight. These things I do for them, and I will not forsake them.
17 They shall be turned back in utter shame who trust in idols; Who say to molten images, You are our gods.
18 You who are deaf, listen, you who are blind, look and see!
19 Who is blind but my servant, or deaf like the messenger I send?
20 You see many things without taking note; your ears are open, but without hearing.
21 Though it pleased the LORD in his justice to make his law great and glorious,
22 This is a people despoiled and plundered, all of them trapped in holes, hidden away in prisons. They are taken as booty, with no one to rescue them, as spoil, with no one to demand their return.
23 Who of you gives ear to this? Who listens and pays heed for the time to come?
24 Who was it that gave Jacob to be plundered, Israel to the despoilers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned? In his ways they refused to walk, his law they disobeyed.
25 So he poured out wrath upon them, his anger, and the fury of battle; It blazed round about them, yet they did not realize, it burned them, but they took it not to heart.