Isaiah 26:14-18

Common English Bible

¹⁴ The dead don’t live; ghosts don’t rise.
    Indeed, you have punished and destroyed them,
    and abolished all memory of them.
¹⁵ You’ve enlarged the nation, Lord.
    You’ve enlarged the nation; you are glorified.
    You’ve expanded all the land’s boundaries.
¹⁶ Lord, in distress they sought you out;
    they poured out prayers to you when you disciplined them.
¹⁷ As a pregnant woman close to childbirth is in labor pains,
    crying out in her pangs,
    so were we because of you, Lord.
¹⁸ We were pregnant, we writhed,
but we gave birth to wind.
We have achieved no victories on earth;
    the inhabitants of the earth never fall.