Isaiah 42

English Standard Version

The Lord's Chosen Servant

42 ^(A)Behold ^(B)my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, ^(C)in whom my soul delights;
^(D)I have put my Spirit upon him;
    ^(E)he will bring forth justice to the nations.
²He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
    or make it heard in the street;
³^(F)a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
    ^(G)he will faithfully bring forth justice.
⁴He will not grow faint or be discouraged^[a]
    till he has established justice in the earth;
    and ^(H)the coastlands wait for his law.

⁵Thus says God, the Lord,
    who created the heavens ^(I)and stretched them out,
    who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
^(J)who gives breath to the people on it
    and spirit to those who walk in it:
⁶“I am the Lord; ^(K)I have called you^[b] in righteousness;
    I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you ^(L)as a covenant for the people,
    ^(M)a light for the nations,
⁷    ^(N)to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
    ^(O)from the prison those who sit in darkness.
⁸I am the Lord; that is my name;
    ^(P)my glory I give to no other,
    nor my praise to carved idols.
⁹Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    ^(Q)and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
    I tell you of them.”

Sing to the Lord a New Song

¹⁰^(R)Sing to the Lord a new song,
    his praise from the end of the earth,
^(S)you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
    ^(T)the coastlands and their inhabitants.
¹¹Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
    the villages that ^(U)Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of ^(V)Sela sing for joy,
    let them shout from the top of the mountains.
¹²Let them give glory to the Lord,
    and declare his praise in ^(W)the coastlands.
¹³^(X)The Lord goes out like a mighty man,
    like a man of war ^(Y)he stirs up his zeal;
he cries out, ^(Z)he shouts aloud,
    he shows himself mighty against his foes.

¹⁴For a long time I have held my peace;
    I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out ^(AA)like a woman in labor;
    I will gasp and pant.
¹⁵^(AB)I will lay waste mountains and hills,
    and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn the rivers into islands,^[c]
    and dry up the pools.
¹⁶^(AC)And I will lead the blind
    in a way that they do not know,
in paths that they have not known
    I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
    ^(AD)the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I do,
    and I do not forsake them.
¹⁷^(AE)They are turned back and utterly put to shame,
    who trust in carved idols,
who say to metal images,
    “You are our gods.”

Israel's Failure to Hear and See

¹⁸Hear, you deaf,
    and look, you blind, that you may see!
¹⁹Who is blind but my servant,
    or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated one,^[d]
    or blind as the servant of the Lord?
²⁰^(AF)He sees many things, but does not observe them;
    ^(AG)his ears are open, but he does not hear.
²¹The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness' sake,
    to magnify his law and make it glorious.
²²But this is a people plundered and looted;
    they are all of them trapped in holes
    ^(AH)and hidden in prisons;
they have become plunder with none to rescue,
    spoil with none to say, “Restore!”
²³Who among you will give ear to this,
    will attend and listen for the time to come?
²⁴Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
    and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
    in whose ways they would not walk,
    and whose law they would not obey?
²⁵So he poured on him the heat of his anger
    and the might of battle;
it set him on fire all around, ^(AI)but he did not understand;
    it burned him up, ^(AJ)but he did not take it to heart.

Footnotes

Isaiah 42:4 Or bruised
Isaiah 42:6 The Hebrew for you is singular; four times in this verse
Isaiah 42:15 Or into coastlands
Isaiah 42:19 Or as the one at peace with me

Isaiah 49

English Standard Version

The Servant of the Lord

49 Listen to me, ^(A)O coastlands,
    and give attention, you peoples ^(B)from afar.
^(C)The Lord called me from the womb,
    from the body of my mother he named my name.
²^(D)He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
    ^(E)in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
    in his quiver he hid me away.
³And he said to me, “You are my servant,
    Israel, ^(F)in whom I will be glorified.”^[a]
⁴^(G)But I said, “I have labored in vain;
    I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the Lord,
    and my recompense with my God.”

⁵^(H)And now the Lord says,
    he ^(I)who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
    and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for ^(J)I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,
    and my God has become my strength—
⁶he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
    to raise up the tribes of Jacob
    and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
^(K)I will make you ^(L)as a light for the nations,
    that ^(M)my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

⁷Thus says the Lord,
    ^(N)the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
^(O)to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
    the servant of rulers:
^(P)“Kings shall see and arise;
    princes, and they shall prostrate themselves;
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
    the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

The Restoration of Israel

⁸Thus says the Lord:
^(Q)“In a ^(R)time of favor I have answered you;
    in a day of salvation I have helped you;
I will keep you ^(S)and give you
    as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
    ^(T)to apportion the desolate heritages,
⁹^(U)saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’
    to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’
^(V)They shall feed along the ways;
    on all bare heights shall be their pasture;
¹⁰^(W)they shall not hunger or thirst,
    neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,
for he who has pity on them ^(X)will lead them,
    and by springs of water will guide them.
¹¹^(Y)And I will make all my mountains a road,
    and my highways shall be raised up.
¹²^(Z)Behold, these shall come from afar,
    and behold, ^(AA)these from the north and from the west,^[b]
    and these from the land of Syene.”^[c]

¹³^(AB)Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord ^(AC)has comforted his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted.

¹⁴But Zion said, ^(AD)“The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵^(AE)“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
    that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
    yet I will not forget you.
¹⁶Behold, ^(AF)I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before me.
¹⁷Your builders make haste;^[d]
    ^(AG)your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.
¹⁸^(AH)Lift up your eyes around and see;
    they all gather, they come to you.
^(AI)As I live, declares the Lord,
    ^(AJ)you shall put them all on as an ornament;
    you shall bind them on as a bride does.

¹⁹“Surely your waste and your desolate places
    and your devastated land—
^(AK)surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,
    and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
²⁰^(AL)The children of your bereavement
    will yet say in your ears:
^(AM)‘The place is too narrow for me;
    make room for me to dwell in.’
²¹Then you will say in your heart:
    ‘Who has borne me these?
^(AN)I was bereaved and barren,
    exiled and put away,
    but who has brought up these?
Behold, I was left alone;
    from where have these come?’”

²²Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
    ^(AO)and raise my signal to the peoples;
^(AP)and they shall bring your sons in their arms,^[e]
    and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
²³^(AQ)Kings shall be your foster fathers,
    and their queens your nursing mothers.
^(AR)With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
    and ^(AS)lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    ^(AT)those who wait for me ^(AU)shall not be put to shame.”

²⁴Can the prey be taken from the mighty,
    or the captives of a tyrant^[f] be rescued?
²⁵For thus says the Lord:
^(AV)“Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken,
    and the prey of the tyrant be rescued,
for I will contend with those who contend with you,
    and I will save your children.
²⁶^(AW)I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
    and they shall be drunk ^(AX)with their own blood as with wine.
Then all flesh shall know
    that ^(AY)I am the Lord your Savior,
    and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Footnotes

Isaiah 49:3 Or I will display my beauty
Isaiah 49:12 Hebrew from the sea
Isaiah 49:12 Dead Sea Scroll; Masoretic Text Sinim
Isaiah 49:17 Dead Sea Scroll; Masoretic Text Your children make haste
Isaiah 49:22 Hebrew in their bosom
Isaiah 49:24 Dead Sea Scroll, Syriac, Vulgate (see also verse 25); Masoretic Text of a righteous man

Isaiah 50

English Standard Version

Israel's Sin and the Servant's Obedience

50 Thus says the Lord:
“Where is ^(A)your mother's certificate of divorce,
    with which ^(B)I sent her away?
Or ^(C)which of my creditors is it
    to whom I have sold you?
^(D)Behold, for your iniquities you were sold,
    and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
²^(E)Why, when I came, was there no man;
    why, when I called, was there no one to answer?
^(F)Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem?
    Or have I no power to deliver?
^(G)Behold, by my rebuke ^(H)I dry up the sea,
    ^(I)I make the rivers a desert;
^(J)their fish stink for lack of water
    and die of thirst.
³^(K)I clothe the heavens with blackness
    and make sackcloth their covering.”

⁴The Lord God has given ^(L)me
    the tongue of those who are taught,
that ^(M)I may know how to sustain with a word
    ^(N)him who is weary.
Morning by morning he awakens;
    he awakens my ear
    to hear as those who are taught.
⁵^(O)The Lord God has opened my ear,
    ^(P)and I was not rebellious;
    I turned not backward.
⁶^(Q)I gave my back to those who strike,
    and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
    from disgrace and spitting.

⁷But the Lord God helps me;
    therefore I have not been disgraced;
^(R)therefore I have set my face like a flint,
    and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
⁸    ^(S)He who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
    Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary?
    Let him come near to me.
⁹^(T)Behold, the Lord God helps me;
    who will declare me guilty?
Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment;
    the moth will eat them up.

¹⁰Who among you fears the Lord
    and obeys ^(U)the voice of his servant?
^(V)Let him who walks in darkness
    and has no light
trust in the name of the Lord
    and rely on his God.
¹¹Behold, all you who kindle a fire,
    who equip yourselves with burning torches!
Walk by the light of your fire,
    and by the torches that you have kindled!
^(W)This you have from my hand:
    you shall lie down in torment.

Isaiah 53

English Standard Version

53 ^(A)Who has believed what he has heard from us?^[a]
    And to whom has ^(B)the arm of the Lord been revealed?
²For he grew up before him like a young plant,
    ^(C)and like a root out of dry ground;
^(D)he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    and no beauty that we should desire him.
³^(E)He was despised and rejected^[b] by men,
    a man of sorrows^[c] and acquainted with^[d] grief;^[e]
and as one from whom men hide their faces^[f]
    he was despised, and ^(F)we esteemed him not.

⁴^(G)Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    ^(H)smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵^(I)But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    ^(J)and with his wounds we are healed.
⁶^(K)All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
^(L)and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    ^(M)yet he opened not his mouth;
^(N)like a ^(O)lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he opened not his mouth.
⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
    and as for his generation, ^(P)who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people?
⁹And they made his grave with the wicked
    ^(Q)and with a rich man in his death,
although ^(R)he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet ^(S)it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;^[g]
^(T)when his soul makes^[h] an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
^(U)the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
¹¹Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see^[i] and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall ^(V)the righteous one, my servant,
    ^(W)make many to be accounted righteous,
    ^(X)and he shall bear their iniquities.
¹²^(Y)Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,^[j]
    ^(Z)and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,^[k]
because he poured out his soul to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors;
^(AA)yet he bore the sin of many,
    and makes intercession for the transgressors.