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16 Lord, in trouble they have sought You;
    they poured out a prayer
    when Your chastening was on them.
17 Like a woman with child, who is in pain and cries out in her pangs
    when she draws near the time of her delivery,
    so have we been in Your sight, O Lord.
18 We have been with child, we have been in pain,
    we have, as it were, brought forth wind;
we have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth,
    nor were the inhabitants of the world born.

19 Your dead shall live,
    their corpses shall arise.
Awake and sing,
    you who dwell in dust,
for your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
    and the earth shall give birth to the departed spirits.

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16 Yahweh, in distress they have visited you;
    they poured out an incantation;[a]
    your discipline was on them.
17 Like a pregnant woman on the point of giving birth, she writhes;
    she cries in her labor pains.

So we were because of your presence, Yahweh.

18 We became pregnant, we writhed;
    we gave birth to wind.
We cannot bring about deliverance on the earth,
    and no inhabitants of the world are born.
19 Your dead shall live; their corpses[b] shall rise.
    Wake up and sing for joy, dwellers of the dust,
for your dew is celestial dew,[c]
    and the earth will give birth to dead spirits.[d]

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 26:16 Literally “whispering”
  2. Isaiah 26:19 Literally “my corpse;” some manuscripts propose an emendation to the suffix to change it to third person masculine plural (“their corpses”), which makes better sense
  3. Isaiah 26:19 Literally “dew of light”
  4. Isaiah 26:19 Or “you make the land of Rephaim fall”