13 Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone do we honour.
14 They are now dead, they live no more;
    their spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
    you wiped out all memory of them.
15 You have enlarged the nation, Lord;
    you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
    you have extended all the borders of the land.

16 Lord, they came to you in their distress;
    when you disciplined them,
    they could barely whisper a prayer.[a]
17 As a pregnant woman about to give birth
    writhes and cries out in her pain,
    so were we in your presence, Lord.
18 We were with child, we writhed in labour,
    but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth,
    and the people of the world have not come to life.

19 But your dead will live, Lord;
    their bodies will rise –
let those who dwell in the dust
    wake up and shout for joy –
your dew is like the dew of the morning;
    the earth will give birth to her dead.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 26:16 The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain.