Isaiah 50:2-4

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

² Why was no one there when I came?
    Why did no one answer when I called?
Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem?
    Or have I no power to deliver?
By my rebuke I dry up the sea,
    I make the rivers a desert;
their fish stink for lack of water,
    and die of thirst.^[a]
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness,
    and make sackcloth their covering.

⁴ The Lord God has given me
    the tongue of a teacher,^[b]
that I may know how to sustain
    the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
    wakens my ear
    to listen as those who are taught.