Isaiah
God will save the children of Abraham
51
1 you who go in search of Yahweh. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, to the pit from which you were quarried. 2 Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sa rah, who gave you birth. He was alone when I called him; but I blessed and increased him. 3 Truly Yahweh’s compassion is for Zion, his mercy is upon all her ruins. He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like Yahweh’s garden. In her will be found joy and rejoicing, melody and song of praise and thanksgiving. 4 Listen to me, you peoples,
4 hear me, O nations.
4 I am to give you my law,
4 my justice will be a light to the nations.
5 Suddenly my justice will appear,
5 my salvation is on the way,
5 and my arm will impose my rule.
5 The islands also wait in hope for me,
5 trusting in my arm.
Awake, Yahweh
10 Was it not you who dried up the sea,
10 the waters of the great deep,
10 to make a way on the seabed
10 for the redeemed to pass over?
11 The redeemed of Yahweh will return
11 and come to Zion singing with joy,
11 crowned with everlasting gladness,
11 while sorrow and mourning flee away.
13 Are you forgetting Yahweh who made you,
13 who stretched forth the heavens
13 and laid the foundations of the earth?
13 Why live every day in constant fear
13 of the fury of the oppressor,
13 when he sets out to destroy you?
13 And where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The captive exiles will soon be free;
14 they will not die in a deep prison,
14 nor will they want for food.
15 I am Yahweh, your God,
15 the one who stirs the sea,
15 making its waves roar.
15 My name is Yahweh Sabaoth.
16 I have put my words in your mouth as I stretched out the heavens; When I laid the foundations of the earth, I said to Zion: “You are my people, and I have shielded you in the shadow of my hand.” 17 Arise, O Jerusalem, you who drank at the hand of Yahweh the cup of his fury, the cup which made you tremble, that you drank to the last drop! 18 Among all the children she bore, she has no one to guide her; among all the sons she reared, she has no one to take her by the hand.
19 These double calamities have befallen you – ruin and destruction, famine and sword. 20 Your children were found helpless at the corner of every street, like wild bulls in a net. They had drunk to the full the fury of Yahweh, the wrath of your God.
21 Therefore hear this now, you afflicted one, you who are drunk but not with wine. 22 Thus says your Lord Yahweh, your God, defender of your people’s cause:
22 See, I am taking out of your hand the cup of trembling; the cup of my anger – you will drink of it no more. 23 But I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, those who ordered you to bow down, that they might trample on you, while you laid your body as a pavement, as a street for them to walk on.
23 But I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, those who ordered you to bow down, that they might trample on you, while you laid your body as a pavement, as a street for them to walk on.