51 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness,
ye that seek the Lord:
look unto the rock whence ye are hewn,
and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
² Look unto Abraham your father,
and unto Sarah that bare you:
for I called him alone,
and blessed him, and increased him.
³ For the Lord shall comfort Zion:
he will comfort all her waste places;
and he will make her wilderness like Eden,
and her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness shall be found therein,
thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

⁴ Hearken unto me, my people;
and give ear unto me, O my nation:
for a law shall proceed from me,
and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
⁵ My righteousness is near;
my salvation is gone forth,
and mine arms shall judge the people;
the isles shall wait upon me,
and on mine arm shall they trust.
⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
and look upon the earth beneath:
for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke,
and the earth shall wax old like a garment,
and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner:
but my salvation shall be for ever,
and my righteousness shall not be abolished.

⁷ Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is my law;
fear ye not the reproach of men,
neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
⁸ For the moth shall eat them up like a garment,
and the worm shall eat them like wool:
but my righteousness shall be for ever,
and my salvation from generation to generation.

⁹ Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord;
awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.
Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
¹⁰ Art thou not it which hath dried the sea,
the waters of the great deep;
that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
¹¹ Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return,
and come with singing unto Zion;
and everlasting joy shall be upon their head:
they shall obtain gladness and joy;
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

¹² I, even I, am he that comforteth you:
who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die,
and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
¹³ and forgettest the Lord thy maker,
that hath stretched forth the heavens,
and laid the foundations of the earth;
and hast feared continually every day
because of the fury of the oppressor,
as if he were ready to destroy?
and where is the fury of the oppressor?
¹⁴ The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed,
and that he should not die in the pit,
nor that his bread should fail.
¹⁵ But I am the Lord thy God,
that divided the sea, whose waves roared:
the Lord of hosts is his name.
¹⁶ And I have put my words in thy mouth,
and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand,
that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth,
and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.

¹⁷ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem,
which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury;
thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling,
and wrung them out.
¹⁸ There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth;
neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
¹⁹ These two things are come unto thee;
who shall be sorry for thee?
desolation, and destruction,
and the famine, and the sword:
by whom shall I comfort thee?
²⁰ Thy sons have fainted,
they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net:
they are full of the fury of the Lord,
the rebuke of thy God.

²¹ Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted,
and drunken, but not with wine:
²² thus saith thy Lord
the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people,
Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling,
even the dregs of the cup of my fury;
thou shalt no more drink it again:
²³ but I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee;
which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over:
and thou hast laid thy body as the ground,
and as the street, to them that went over.