40 Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.

² Speak tenderly to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry to her that her time of service and her warfare are ended, that [her punishment is accepted and] her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received [punishment] from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

³ A voice of one who cries: Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord [clear away the obstacles]; make straight and smooth in the desert a highway for our God!^(A)

⁴ Every valley shall be lifted and filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked and uneven shall be made straight and level, and the rough places a plain.

⁵ And the glory (majesty and splendor) of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.^(B)

⁶ A voice says, Cry [prophesy]! And I said, What shall I cry? [The voice answered, Proclaim:] All flesh is as frail as grass, and all that makes it attractive [its kindness, its goodwill, its mercy from God, its glory and comeliness, however good] is transitory, like the flower of the field.

⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely [all] the people are like grass.

⁸ The ^[a]grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.^(C)

⁹ O you who bring good tidings to Zion, get up to the high mountain. O you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God!^(D)

¹⁰ Behold, the Lord God will come with might, and His arm will rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.^(E)

¹¹ He will feed His flock like a shepherd: He will gather the lambs in His arm, He will carry them in His bosom and will gently lead those that have their young.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, marked off the heavens with a [nine-inch] span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him?^(F)

¹⁴ With whom did He take counsel, that instruction might be given Him? Who taught Him the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and showed Him the way of understanding?

¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as small dust on the scales; behold, He takes up the isles like a very little thing.

¹⁶ And all Lebanon’s [forests] cannot supply sufficient fuel, nor all its wild beasts furnish victims enough to burn sacrifices [worthy of the Lord].

¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and emptiness (waste, futility, and worthlessness).

¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God? Or with what likeness will you compare Him?^(G)

¹⁹ The graven image! A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts silver chains for it.

²⁰ He who is so impoverished that he has no offering or oblation or rich gift to give [to his god is constrained to make a wooden offering, an idol; so he] chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to carve and set up an image that will not totter or deteriorate.

²¹ [You worshipers of idols, you are without excuse.] Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? [These things ought to convince you of God’s omnipotence and of the folly of bowing to idols.] Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?^(H)

²² It is God Who sits above the circle (the horizon) of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; it is He Who stretches out the heavens like [gauze] curtains and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in,

²³ Who brings dignitaries to nothing, Who makes the judges and rulers of the earth as chaos (emptiness, falsity, and futility).

²⁴ Yes, these men are scarcely planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely does their stock take root in the earth, when [the Lord] blows upon them and they wither, and the whirlwind or tempest takes them away like stubble.

²⁵ To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal to him? says the Holy One.

²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see! Who has created these? He Who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name; through the greatness of His might and because He is strong in power, not one is missing or lacks anything.

²⁷ Why, O Jacob, do you say, and declare, O Israel, My way and my lot are hidden from the Lord, and my right is passed over without regard from my God?

²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary; there is no searching of His understanding.

²⁹ He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound].^(I)

³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary, and [selected] young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted;

³¹ But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.^(J)

2 And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place,

² When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting.

³ And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which were separated and distributed and which settled on each one of them.

⁴ And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit ^[a]kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words].

⁵ Now there were then residing in Jerusalem Jews, devout and God-fearing men from every country under heaven.

⁶ And when this sound was heard, the multitude came together and they were astonished and bewildered, because each one heard them [the apostles] speaking in his own [particular] dialect.

⁷ And they were beside themselves with amazement, saying, Are not all these who are talking Galileans?

⁸ Then how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own (particular) dialect to which we were born?

⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and [the province of] Asia,

¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and the transient residents from Rome, both Jews and the proselytes [to Judaism from other religions],

¹¹ Cretans and Arabians too—we all hear them speaking in our own native tongues [and telling of] the mighty works of God!

¹² And all were beside themselves with amazement and were puzzled and bewildered, saying one to another, What can this mean?

¹³ But others made a joke of it and derisively said, They are simply drunk and full of sweet [intoxicating] wine.

¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: You Jews and all you residents of Jerusalem, let this be [explained] to you so that you will know and understand; listen closely to what I have to say.

¹⁵ For these men are not drunk, as you imagine, for it is [only] the third hour (about 9:00 a.m.) of the day;

¹⁶ But [instead] this is [the beginning of] what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ And it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy [^[b]telling forth the divine counsels] and your young men shall see visions (^[c]divinely granted appearances), and your old men shall dream [^[d]divinely suggested] dreams.

¹⁸ Yes, and on My menservants also and on My maidservants in those days I will pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy [^[e]telling forth the divine counsels and ^[f]predicting future events pertaining especially to God’s kingdom].

¹⁹ And I will show wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth beneath, blood and fire and smoking vapor;

²⁰ The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the obvious day of the Lord comes—that great and notable and conspicuous and renowned [day].

²¹ And it shall be that whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord [^[g]invoking, adoring, and worshiping the Lord—Christ] shall be saved.^(A)

2 And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place,

² When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting.

³ And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which were separated and distributed and which settled on each one of them.

⁴ And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit ^[a]kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words].

⁵ Now there were then residing in Jerusalem Jews, devout and God-fearing men from every country under heaven.

⁶ And when this sound was heard, the multitude came together and they were astonished and bewildered, because each one heard them [the apostles] speaking in his own [particular] dialect.

⁷ And they were beside themselves with amazement, saying, Are not all these who are talking Galileans?

⁸ Then how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own (particular) dialect to which we were born?

⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and [the province of] Asia,

¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and the transient residents from Rome, both Jews and the proselytes [to Judaism from other religions],

¹¹ Cretans and Arabians too—we all hear them speaking in our own native tongues [and telling of] the mighty works of God!

¹² And all were beside themselves with amazement and were puzzled and bewildered, saying one to another, What can this mean?

¹³ But others made a joke of it and derisively said, They are simply drunk and full of sweet [intoxicating] wine.

¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: You Jews and all you residents of Jerusalem, let this be [explained] to you so that you will know and understand; listen closely to what I have to say.

¹⁵ For these men are not drunk, as you imagine, for it is [only] the third hour (about 9:00 a.m.) of the day;

¹⁶ But [instead] this is [the beginning of] what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ And it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy [^[b]telling forth the divine counsels] and your young men shall see visions (^[c]divinely granted appearances), and your old men shall dream [^[d]divinely suggested] dreams.

¹⁸ Yes, and on My menservants also and on My maidservants in those days I will pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy [^[e]telling forth the divine counsels and ^[f]predicting future events pertaining especially to God’s kingdom].

¹⁹ And I will show wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth beneath, blood and fire and smoking vapor;

²⁰ The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the obvious day of the Lord comes—that great and notable and conspicuous and renowned [day].

²¹ And it shall be that whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord [^[g]invoking, adoring, and worshiping the Lord—Christ] shall be saved.^(A)