Isaiah 26:7-19

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁷ The way of the righteous is level;
    thou^[a] dost make smooth the path of the righteous.
⁸ In the path of thy judgments,
    O Lord, we wait for thee;
thy memorial name
    is the desire of our soul.
⁹ My soul yearns for thee in the night,
    my spirit within me earnestly seeks thee.
For when thy judgments are in the earth,
    the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
¹⁰ If favor is shown to the wicked,
    he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals perversely
    and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
¹¹ O Lord, thy hand is lifted up,
    but they see it not.
Let them see thy zeal for thy people, and be ashamed.
    Let the fire for thy adversaries consume them.
¹² O Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us,
    thou hast wrought for us all our works.
¹³ O Lord our God,
    other lords besides thee have ruled over us,
    but thy name alone we acknowledge.
¹⁴ They are dead, they will not live;
    they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end thou hast visited them with destruction
    and wiped out all remembrance of them.
¹⁵ But thou hast increased the nation, O Lord,
    thou hast increased the nation; thou art glorified;
    thou hast enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ O Lord, in distress they sought thee,
    they poured out a prayer^[b]
    when thy chastening was upon them.
¹⁷ Like a woman with child,
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs,
    when she is near her time,
so were we because of thee, O Lord;
¹⁸     we were with child, we writhed,
    we have as it were brought forth wind.
We have wrought no deliverance in the earth,
    and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
¹⁹ Thy dead shall live, their bodies^[c] shall rise.
    O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For thy dew is a dew of light,
    and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall.