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14 The dead do not live;
    dead spirits do not rise
because you have punished and destroyed them,
    and you have destroyed all memory of them.
15 You have added to the nation, Yahweh.
    You have added to the nation; you are honored.
    You have extended all the ends of the land.
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.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 26:16 Literally “whispering”

14 The dead shall not live.
    The departed spirits shall not rise.
Therefore you have visited and destroyed them,
    and caused all memory of them to perish.
15 You have increased the nation, O Yahweh.
    You have increased the nation!
You are glorified!
    You have enlarged all the borders of the land.

16 Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you.
    They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.
17 Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery,
    is in pain and cries out in her pangs,
    so we have been before you, Yahweh.
18 We have been with child.
    We have been in pain.
We gave birth, it seems, only to wind.
    We have not worked any deliverance in the earth;
    neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

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