50

1Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away?

Or to which of my creditors have I sold you?

Behold, you were sold for your iniquities,

and your mother was put away for your transgressions.

2Why, when I came, was there no one?

When I called, why was there no one to answer?

Is my hand shortened at all, that it can’t redeem?

Or have I no power to deliver?

Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea.

I make the rivers a wilderness.

Their fish stink because there is no water, and die of thirst.

3I clothe the heavens with blackness.

I make sackcloth their covering.”

4The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught,

that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary.

He awakens morning by morning,

he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.

5The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear.

I was not rebellious.

I have not turned back.

6I gave my back to those who beat me,

and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair.

I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting.

7For the Lord Yahweh will help me.

Therefore I have not been confounded.

Therefore I have set my face like a flint,

and I know that I won’t be disappointed.

8He who justifies me is near.

Who will bring charges against me?

Let us stand up together.

Who is my adversary?

Let him come near to me.

9Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me!

Who is he who will condemn me?

Behold, they will all grow old like a garment.

The moths will eat them up.

10Who among you fears Yahweh

and obeys the voice of his servant?

He who walks in darkness

and has no light,

let him trust in Yahweh’s name,

and rely on his God.

11Behold, all you who kindle a fire,

who adorn yourselves with torches around yourselves,

walk in the flame of your fire,

and among the torches that you have kindled.

You will have this from my hand:

you will lie down in sorrow.

51

1“Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness,

you who seek Yahweh.

Look to the rock you were cut from,

and to the quarry you were dug from.

2Look to Abraham your father,

and to Sarah who bore you;

for when he was but one I called him,

I blessed him,

and made him many.

3For Yahweh has comforted Zion.

He has comforted all her waste places,

and has made her wilderness like Eden,

and her desert like the garden of Yahweh.

Joy and gladness will be found in them,

thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

4“Listen to me, my people;

and hear me, my nation,

for a law will go out from me,

and I will establish my justice for a light to the peoples.

5My righteousness is near.

My salvation has gone out,

and my arms will judge the peoples.

The islands will wait for me,

and they will trust my arm.

6Lift up your eyes to the heavens,

and look at the earth beneath;

for the heavens will vanish away like smoke,

and the earth will wear out like a garment.

Its inhabitants will die in the same way,

but my salvation will be forever,

and my righteousness will not be abolished.

7“Listen to me, you who know righteousness,

the people in whose heart is my law.

Don’t fear the reproach of men,

and don’t be dismayed at their insults.

8For the moth will eat them up like a garment,

and the worm will eat them like wool;

but my righteousness will be forever,

and my salvation to all generations.”

9Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh!

Awake, as in the days of old,

the generations of ancient times.

Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces,

who pierced the monster?

10Isn’t it you who dried up the sea,

the waters of the great deep;

who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

11Those ransomed by Yahweh will return,

and come with singing to Zion.

Everlasting joy shall be on their heads.

They will obtain gladness and joy.

Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

12“I, even I, am he who comforts you.

Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die,

and of the son of man who will be made as grass?

13Have you forgotten Yahweh your Maker,

who stretched out the heavens,

and laid the foundations of the earth?

Do you live in fear continually all day because of the fury of the oppressor,

when he prepares to destroy?

Where is the fury of the oppressor?

14The captive exile will speedily be freed.

He will not die and go down into the pit.

His bread won’t fail.

15For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea

so that its waves roar.

Yahweh of Armies is his name.

16I have put my words in your mouth

and have covered you in the shadow of my hand,

that I may plant the heavens,

and lay the foundations of the earth,

and tell Zion, ‘You are my people.’”

17Awake, awake!

Stand up, Jerusalem,

you who have drunk from Yahweh’s hand the cup of his wrath.

You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering,

and drained it.

18There is no one to guide her among all the sons to whom she has given birth;

and there is no one who takes her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up.

19These two things have happened to you—

who will grieve with you?—

desolation and destruction,

and famine and the sword.

How can I comfort you?

20Your sons have fainted.

They lie at the head of all the streets,

like an antelope in a net.

They are full of Yahweh’s wrath,

the rebuke of your God.

21Therefore now hear this, you afflicted,

and drunken, but not with wine:

22Your Lord Yahweh,

your God who pleads the cause of his people, says,

“Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering,

even the bowl of the cup of my wrath.

You will not drink it any more.

23I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,

who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may walk over you;’

and you have laid your back as the ground,

like a street to those who walk over.”

52

1Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion.

Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city,

for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.

2Shake yourself from the dust!

Arise, sit up, Jerusalem!

Release yourself from the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion!

3For Yahweh says, “You were sold for nothing;

and you will be redeemed without money.”

4For the Lord Yahweh says:

“My people went down at the first into Egypt to live there;

and the Assyrian has oppressed them without cause.

5“Now therefore, what do I do here,” says Yahweh,

“seeing that my people are taken away for nothing?

Those who rule over them mock,” says Yahweh,

“and my name is blasphemed continually all day long.

6Therefore my people shall know my name.

Therefore they shall know in that day that I am he who speaks.

Behold, it is I.”

7How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news,

who publishes peace,

who brings good news,

who proclaims salvation,

who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

8Your watchmen lift up their voice.

Together they sing;

for they shall see eye to eye when Yahweh returns to Zion.

9Break out into joy!

Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem;

for Yahweh has comforted his people.

He has redeemed Jerusalem.

10Yahweh has made his holy arm bare in the eyes of all the nations.

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

11Depart! Depart! Go out from there! Touch no unclean thing!

Go out from among her!

Cleanse yourselves, you who carry Yahweh’s vessels.

12For you shall not go out in haste,

neither shall you go by flight;

for Yahweh will go before you,

and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

13Behold, my servant will deal wisely.

He will be exalted and lifted up,

and will be very high.

14Just as many were astonished at you—

his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men—

15so he will cleanse many nations.

Kings will shut their mouths at him;

for they will see that which had not been told them,

and they will understand that which they had not heard.

53

1Who has believed our message?

To whom has Yahweh’s arm been revealed?

2For he grew up before him as a tender plant,

and as a root out of dry ground.

He has no good looks or majesty.

When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3He was despised

and rejected by men,

a man of suffering

and acquainted with disease.

He was despised as one from whom men hide their face;

and we didn’t respect him.

4Surely he has borne our sickness

and carried our suffering;

yet we considered him plagued,

struck by God, and afflicted.

5But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought our peace was on him;

and by his wounds we are healed.

6All we like sheep have gone astray.

Everyone has turned to his own way;

and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7He was oppressed,

yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth.

As a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he didn’t open his mouth.

8He was taken away by oppression and judgment.

As for his generation,

who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living

and stricken for the disobedience of my people?

9They made his grave with the wicked,

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him.

He has caused him to suffer.

When you make his soul an offering for sin,

he will see his offspring.

He will prolong his days

and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.

11After the suffering of his soul,

he will see the light and be satisfied.

My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself;

and he will bear their iniquities.

12Therefore I will give him a portion with the great.

He will divide the plunder with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was counted with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sins of many

and made intercession for the transgressors.