The Lord

40 ¹“Comfort, O comfort My people,”

Isaiah

says your God.

²Speak to the heart of Jerusalem
and call to it,

because its hard service is fulfilled,
because its iniquity is pardoned,
because it has taken from the LORD’s hand, double for all its sins.

³A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

John the Baptist

“Prepare the way of the LORD;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Isaiah

⁴Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be made low;

the uneven ground will become level,
and the rough places a plain.

⁵Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all flesh will see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

⁶A voice said,

The Lord

“Call out!”

Isaiah

And I said, “What will I call out?”

The Lord

“All flesh is grass,
and all its loving-kindness like the flower of the field.

Isaiah

⁷Grass withers,
a flower fades
when the LORD’s Spirit blows upon it.

Surely, the people are grass.
⁸Grass withers;
a flower fades,
but the word of our God stands forever.”

Isaiah

⁹O Zion, that brings good tidings, go up on a high mountain;
O Jerusalem, that brings good tidings, lift up your voice with power.

O lift up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah,

Zion’s inhabitants

“Behold your God!

¹⁰Behold, the Lord, the LORD will come with strength,
and His arm rules for Him.

Behold, His reward is with Him,
and His recompense is before Him.

¹¹Like a shepherd He will tend His flock;
He will gather lambs in His arm,

and He will carry them in His bosom.
He will lead the sucklings.”

Isaiah

¹²Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
and marked off the heavens with the width of His hand,
and gauged the dust of the earth in a measure?

And weighed the mountains in the scales
and the hills in a balance?

¹³Who directs the Spirit of the LORD?
Or what man shows Him his counsel?

¹⁴With whom did He counsel? Who made Him understand,
and who taught Him the path of justice,

and taught Him knowledge,
and made Him know the way of understanding?

¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and they are regarded as dust on the scales;
behold, He takes up the isles like fine dust.

¹⁶And Lebanon is not sufficient for burning,
and its beasts are not sufficient for a burnt offering.

¹⁷All nations are as nothing before Him.
They are regarded by Him as nothingness and chaos.

¹⁸Then, to whom will you liken God?
Or with what likeness do you compare Him?

¹⁹A craftsman casts the idol,
and a smith overlays it with gold and forges chains of silver.

²⁰The poor chooses an offering of wood that will not rot.
He seeks for himself a skilled craftsman to prepare an idol that will not topple.

²¹Will you not know?
Will you not hear?

Has it not been told to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

²²He who is enthroned above the circle of the earth
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
and stretches them like a tent to dwell in,

²³who brings rulers to nothing.
He makes the judges of the earth as chaos.

²⁴No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner has their stem taken root in the earth,

when He blows upon them and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

The Lord

²⁵“To whom will you liken Me,
that I may be compared?”

Isaiah

says the Holy One.

Isaiah

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see—
Who created these?

He who brings out their hosts by number,
calling them all by name.

Through abundant might and mighty power,
not one is missing.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel?

God’s covenant people

“My way is hidden from the LORD,
and from my God my judgment is passed over?”

Isaiah

²⁸Did you not know?
Did you not hear?

The LORD is the Everlasting God,
Creator of the ends of the earth!

He does not faint;
He is not weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

²⁹He gives power to the faint,
and to him who lacks might, He increases strength.

³⁰Even youth will grow faint and weary,
and young men will certainly stumble,

³¹but those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength;
they will go up with wings like eagles,

they will run and not grow weary,
and they will walk and not faint.