Isaiah 42

New King James Version

The Servant of the Lord

42 “Behold! ^(A)My Servant whom I uphold,
My ^[a]Elect One in whom My soul ^(B)delights!
^(C)I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
²He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.
³A bruised reed He will not break,
And ^[b]smoking flax He will not ^[c]quench;
He will bring forth justice for truth.
⁴He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
^(D)And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”

⁵Thus says God the Lord,
^(E)Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it,
^(F)Who gives breath to the people on it,
And spirit to those who walk on it:
⁶“I,^(G) the Lord, have called You in righteousness,
And will hold Your hand;
I will keep You ^(H)and give You as a covenant to the people,
As ^(I)a light to the Gentiles,
⁷^(J)To open blind eyes,
To ^(K)bring out prisoners from the prison,
Those who sit in ^(L)darkness from the prison house.
⁸I am the Lord, that is My name;
And My ^(M)glory I will not give to another,
Nor My praise to carved images.
⁹Behold, the former things have come to pass,
And new things I declare;
Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

Praise to the Lord

¹⁰^(N)Sing to the Lord a new song,
And His praise from the ends of the earth,
^(O)You who go down to the sea, and ^[d]all that is in it,
You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!
¹¹Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice,
The villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing,
Let them shout from the top of the mountains.
¹²Let them give glory to the Lord,
And declare His praise in the coastlands.
¹³The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man;
He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war.
He shall cry out, ^(P)yes, shout aloud;
He shall prevail against His enemies.

Promise of the Lord’s Help

¹⁴“I have held My peace a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now I will cry like a woman in ^[e]labor,
I will pant and gasp at once.
¹⁵I will lay waste the mountains and hills,
And dry up all their vegetation;
I will make the rivers coastlands,
And I will dry up the pools.
¹⁶I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them.
¹⁷They shall be ^(Q)turned back,
They shall be greatly ashamed,
Who trust in carved images,
Who say to the molded images,
‘You are our gods.’

¹⁸“Hear, you deaf;
And look, you blind, that you may see.
¹⁹^(R)Who is blind but My servant,
Or deaf as My messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as he who is perfect,
And blind as the Lord’s servant?
²⁰Seeing many things, ^(S)but you do not observe;
Opening the ears, but he does not hear.”

Israel’s Obstinate Disobedience

²¹The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake;
He will exalt the law and make it honorable.
²²But this is a people robbed and plundered;
All of them are ^[f]snared in holes,
And they are hidden in prison houses;
They are for prey, and no one delivers;
For plunder, and no one says, “Restore!”

²³Who among you will give ear to this?
Who will listen and hear for the time to come?
²⁴Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the robbers?
Was it not the Lord,
He against whom we have sinned?
^(T)For they would not walk in His ways,
Nor were they obedient to His law.
²⁵Therefore He has poured on him the fury of His anger
And the strength of battle;
^(U)It has set him on fire all around,
^(V)Yet he did not know;
And it burned him,
Yet he did not take it to ^(W)heart.

Footnotes

Isaiah 42:1 Chosen
Isaiah 42:3 dimly burning
Isaiah 42:3 extinguish
Isaiah 42:10 Lit. its fullness
Isaiah 42:14 childbirth
Isaiah 42:22 Or trapped in caves

Revelation 12

New King James Version

The Woman, the Child, and the Dragon

12 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. ²Then being with child, she cried out ^(A)in labor and in pain to give birth.

³And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, ^(B)a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. ⁴^(C)His tail drew a third ^(D)of the stars of heaven ^(E)and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood ^(F)before the woman who was ready to give birth, ^(G)to devour her Child as soon as it was born. ⁵She bore a male Child ^(H)who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was ^(I)caught up to God and His throne. ⁶Then ^(J)the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there ^(K)one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Satan Thrown Out of Heaven

⁷And war broke out in heaven: ^(L)Michael and his angels fought ^(M)with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, ⁸but they ^[a]did not prevail, nor was a place found for ^[b]them in heaven any longer. ⁹So ^(N)the great dragon was cast out, ^(O)that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, ^(P)who deceives the whole world; ^(Q)he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ^(R)“Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, ^(S)who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. ¹¹And ^(T)they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, ^(U)and they did not love their lives to the death. ¹²Therefore ^(V)rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! ^(W)Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, ^(X)because he knows that he has a short time.”

The Woman Persecuted

¹³Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted ^(Y)the woman who gave birth to the male Child. ¹⁴^(Z)But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, ^(AA)that she might fly ^(AB)into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished ^(AC)for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. ¹⁵So the serpent ^(AD)spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. ¹⁶But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. ¹⁷And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus ^[c]Christ.