Chapter 51

¹ Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord: look to the solid rock, which ye have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which ye have dug. ² Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you: for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him. ³ And now I will comfort thee, O Zion: and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as a garden, and her western places as the garden of the Lord; they shall find in her gladness and exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.

Isa 51:1-3

⁴ Hear me, hear me, my people; and ye kings, hearken to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment [shall be] for a light of the nations. ⁵ My righteousness speedily draws nigh, and my salvation shall go forth as light, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust. ⁶ Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my righteousness shall not fail.

Isa 51:4-6

⁷ Hear me, ye that know judgment, the people in whose heart is my law: fear not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their contempt. ⁸ For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth, [so shall they be consumed]; but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation for all generations.

Isa 51:7-8

⁹ Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, and put on the strength of thine arm; awake as in the early time, as the ancient generation. ¹⁰ Art thou not it that dried the sea, the water, [even] the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered and redeemed? ¹¹ for by [the help of] the Lord they shall return, and come to Zion with joy and everlasting exultation, for praise and joy shall come upon their head: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away.

Isa 51:9-11

¹² I, [even] I, am he that comforts thee: consider who thou art, that thou wast afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass. ¹³ And thou hast forgotten God who made thee, who made the sky and founded the earth; and thou wert continually afraid because of the wrath of him that afflicted thee: for [whereas] he counseled to take thee away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted thee? ¹⁴ For in thy deliverance he shall not halt, nor tarry; ¹⁵ for I am thy God, that troubles the sea, and causes the waves thereof to roar: the Lord of hosts is my name. ¹⁶ I will put my words into thy mouth, and I will shelter thee under the shadow of my hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and [the Lord] shall say to Zion, Thou art my people.

Isa 51:12-16

¹⁷ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury: for thou hast drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of wrath: ¹⁸ and there was none to comfort thee of all the children whom thou borest; and there was none to take hold of thy hand, not even of all the children whom thou hast reared. ¹⁹ Wherefore these things are against thee; who shall sympathize with thee in thy grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort thee? ²⁰ Thy sons are the perplexed ones, that sleep at the top of every street as a half-boiled beet; they that are full of the anger of the Lord, caused to faint by the Lord God.

Isa 51:17-20

²¹ Therefore hear, thou afflicted one, and drunken, [but] not with wine; ²² thus saith the Lord God that judges his people, Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of calamity, the cup of my wrath; and thou shalt not drink it anymore. ²³ And I will give it into the hands of them that injured thee, and them that afflicted thee; who said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may pass over: and thou didst level thy body with the ground to them passing by without.

Isa 51:21-23