Isaiah 40:21-31

Common English Bible

²¹Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
    Wasn’t it announced to you from the beginning?
    Haven’t you understood since the earth was founded?
²²God inhabits the earth’s horizon—
    its inhabitants are like locusts—
    stretches out the skies like a curtain
    and spreads it out like a tent for dwelling.
²³    God makes dignitaries useless
    and the earth’s judges into nothing.
²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
    scarcely is their shoot rooted in the earth
    when God breathes on them, and they dry up;
    the windstorm carries them off like straw.
²⁵So to whom will you compare me,
    and who is my equal? says the holy one.

Power for the weary

²⁶Look up at the sky and consider:
    Who created these?
    The one who brings out their attendants one by one,
    summoning each of them by name.
Because of God’s great strength
    and mighty power, not one is missing.
²⁷Why do you say, Jacob,
    and declare, Israel,
    “My way is hidden from the Lord,
    my God ignores my predicament”?
²⁸Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
    The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the creator of the ends of the earth.
    He doesn’t grow tired or weary.
His understanding is beyond human reach,
²⁹    giving power to the tired
    and reviving the exhausted.
³⁰Youths will become tired and weary,
    young men will certainly stumble;
³¹    but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength;
    they will fly up on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not be tired;
    they will walk and not be weary.