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Isaiah 49:8-18
The Message
Isaiah 49:8-18
The Message
8-12 God also says:
“When the time’s ripe, I answer you.
When victory’s due, I help you.
I form you and use you
to reconnect the people with me,
To put the land in order,
to resettle families on the ruined properties.
I tell prisoners, ‘Come on out. You’re free!’
and those huddled in fear, ‘It’s all right. It’s safe now.’
There’ll be foodstands along all the roads,
picnics on all the hills—
Nobody hungry, nobody thirsty,
shade from the sun, shelter from the wind,
For the Compassionate One guides them,
takes them to the best springs.
I’ll make all my mountains into roads,
turn them into a superhighway.
Look: These coming from far countries,
and those, out of the north,
These streaming in from the west,
and those from all the way down the Nile!”
13 Heavens, raise the roof! Earth, wake the dead!
Mountains, send up cheers!
God has comforted his people.
He has tenderly nursed his beaten-up, beaten-down people.
14 But Zion said, “I don’t get it. God has left me.
My Master has forgotten I even exist.”
15-18 “Can a mother forget the infant at her breast,
walk away from the baby she bore?
But even if mothers forget,
I’d never forget you—never.
Look, I’ve written your names on the backs of my hands.
The walls you’re rebuilding are never out of my sight.
Your builders are faster than your wreckers.
The demolition crews are gone for good.
Look up, look around, look well!
See them all gathering, coming to you?
As sure as I am the living God”—God’s Decree—
“you’re going to put them on like so much jewelry,
you’re going to use them to dress up like a bride.
Isaiah 49:8-16
New International Version
Isaiah 49:8-16
New International Version
Restoration of Israel
8 This is what the Lord says:
“In the time of my favor(A) I will answer you,
and in the day of salvation I will help you;(B)
I will keep(C) you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people,(D)
to restore the land(E)
and to reassign its desolate inheritances,(F)
9 to say to the captives,(G) ‘Come out,’
and to those in darkness,(H) ‘Be free!’
“They will feed beside the roads
and find pasture on every barren hill.(I)
10 They will neither hunger nor thirst,(J)
nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.(K)
He who has compassion(L) on them will guide(M) them
and lead them beside springs(N) of water.
11 I will turn all my mountains into roads,
and my highways(O) will be raised up.(P)
12 See, they will come from afar(Q)—
some from the north, some from the west,(R)
some from the region of Aswan.[a]”
Footnotes
- Isaiah 49:12 Dead Sea Scrolls; Masoretic Text Sinim
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
New International Version (NIV) 
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NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.