51 Hearken to Me, you who follow after rightness and justice, you who seek and inquire of [and require] the Lord [claiming Him by necessity and by right]: look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole in the quarry from which you were dug;

² Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him when he was but one, and I blessed him and made him many.

³ For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song or instrument of praise.

⁴ Listen to Me [the Lord], O My people, and give ear to Me, O My nation; for a [divine] law will go forth from Me, and I will establish My justice for a light to the peoples.

⁵ My rightness and justice are near, My salvation is going forth, and My arms shall rule the peoples; the islands shall wait for and expect Me, and on My arm shall they trust and wait with hope.

⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens shall be dissolved and vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner [like gnats]. But My salvation shall be forever, and My rightness and justice [and faithfully fulfilled promise] shall not be abolished.^(A)

⁷ Listen to Me, you who know rightness and justice and right standing with God, the people in whose heart is My law and My instruction: fear not the reproach of men, neither be afraid nor dismayed at their revilings.

⁸ For [in comparison with the Lord they are so weak that things as insignificant as] the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But My rightness and justice [and faithfully fulfilled promise] shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations.

⁹ [Zion now cries to the Lord, the God of Israel] Awake, awake, put on strength and might, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, as in the generations of long ago. Was it not You Who cut Rahab [Egypt] in pieces, Who pierced the dragon [symbol of Egypt]?^(B)

¹⁰ Was it not You Who dried up the Red Sea, the waters of the great deep, Who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? [Why then are we left so long in captivity?]

¹¹ [The Lord God says] And the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing to Zion; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.^(C)

¹² I, even I, am He Who comforts you. Who are you, that you should be afraid of man, who shall die, and of a son of man, who shall be made [as destructible] as grass,

¹³ That you should forget the Lord your Maker, Who stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and fear continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he makes ready to destroy or even though he did so? And where is the fury of the oppressor?

¹⁴ The captive exile and he who is bent down by chains shall speedily be released; and he shall not die and go down to the pit of destruction, nor shall his food fail.

¹⁵ For I am the Lord your God, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar and Who by rebuke restrains it—the Lord of hosts is His name.

¹⁶ And I have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, that I may fix the [new] heavens as a tabernacle and lay the foundations of a [new] earth and say to Zion, You are My people.^(D)

¹⁷ Arouse yourself, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath, you who have drunk the cup of staggering and intoxication to the dregs.

¹⁸ There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; neither is there anyone to take her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up.

¹⁹ Two kinds of calamities have befallen you—but who feels sorry for and commiserates you?—they are desolation and destruction [on the land and city], and famine and sword [on the inhabitants]—how shall I comfort you or by whom?

²⁰ Your sons have fainted; they lie [like corpses] at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net; they are full [from drinking] of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.

²¹ Therefore, now hear this, you who are afflicted, and [who are] drunk, but not with wine [but thrown down by the wrath of God].

²² Thus says your Lord, the Lord, and your God, Who pleads the cause of His people: Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering and intoxication; the cup of My wrath you shall drink no more.

²³ And I will put it into the hands of your tormentors and oppressors, those who said to you, Bow down, that we may ride or tread over you; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.

52 Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.^(A)

² Shake yourself from the dust; arise, sit [erect in a dignified place], O Jerusalem; loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion.

³ For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.

⁴ For thus says the Lord God: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there; and [many years later Sennacherib] the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing. [Now I delivered you from both Egypt and Assyria; what then can prevent Me from delivering you from Babylon?]

⁵ But now what have I here, says the Lord, seeing that My people have been taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them howl [with joy], says the Lord, and My name continually is blasphemed all day long.^(B)

⁶ Therefore My people shall know what My name is and what it means; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks; behold, I Am!^(C)

⁷ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns!^(D)

⁸ Hark, your watchmen lift up their voices; together they sing for joy; for they shall see eye to eye the return of the Lord to Zion.

⁹ Break forth joyously, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem!

¹⁰ The Lord has made bare His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations [revealing Himself as the One by Whose direction the redemption of Israel from captivity is accomplished], and all the ends of the earth shall witness the salvation of our God.^(E)

¹¹ Depart, depart, go out from there [the lands of exile]! Touch no unclean thing! Go out of the midst of her [Babylon]; cleanse yourselves and be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord [on your journey from there].^(F)

¹² For you will not go out with haste, nor will you go in flight [as was necessary when Israel left Egypt]; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

¹³ Behold, My ^[a]Servant shall deal wisely and shall prosper; He shall be exalted and extolled and shall stand very high.

¹⁴ [For many the Servant of God became an object of horror; many were astonished at Him.] His face and His whole appearance were marred more than any man’s, and His form beyond that of the sons of men—but just as many were astonished at Him,

¹⁵ So shall He startle and sprinkle many nations, and kings shall shut their mouths because of Him; for that which has not been told them shall they see, and that which they have not heard shall they consider and understand.^(G)

8 Now the main point of what we have to say is this: We have such a High Priest, One Who is seated at the right hand of the majestic [God] in heaven,^(A)

² As officiating Priest, a Minister in the holy places and in the true tabernacle which is erected not by man but by the Lord.

³ For every high priest is appointed to offer up gifts and sacrifices; so it is essential for this [High Priest] to have some offering to make also.

⁴ If then He were still living on earth, He would not be a priest at all, for there are [already priests] who offer the gifts in accordance with the Law.

⁵ [But these offer] service [merely] as a pattern and as a foreshadowing of [what has its true existence and reality in] the heavenly sanctuary. For when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle, he was warned by God, saying, See to it that you make it all [exactly] according to the copy (the model) which was shown to you on the mountain.^(B)

⁶ But as it now is, He [Christ] has acquired a [priestly] ministry which is as much superior and more excellent [than the old] as the covenant (the agreement) of which He is the Mediator (the Arbiter, Agent) is superior and more excellent, [because] it is enacted and rests upon more important (sublimer, higher, and nobler) promises.

⁷ For if that first covenant had been without defect, there would have been no room for another one or an attempt to institute another one.

⁸ However, He finds fault with them [showing its inadequacy] when He says, Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, when I will make and ratify a new covenant or agreement with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

⁹ It will not be like the covenant that I made with their forefathers on the day when I grasped them by the hand to help and relieve them and to lead them out from the land of Egypt, for they did not abide in My agreement with them, and so I withdrew My favor and disregarded them, says the Lord.

¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will imprint My laws upon their minds, even upon their innermost thoughts and understanding, and engrave them upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

¹¹ And it will nevermore be necessary for each one to teach his neighbor and his fellow citizen or each one his brother, saying, Know (perceive, have knowledge of, and get acquainted by experience with) the Lord, for all will know Me, from the smallest to the greatest of them.

¹² For I will be merciful and gracious toward their sins and I will remember their deeds of unrighteousness no more.^(C)

¹³ When God speaks of a new [covenant or agreement], He makes the first one obsolete (out of use). And what is obsolete (out of use and annulled because of age) is ripe for disappearance and to be dispensed with altogether.