Beginning

42 Behold my ^[a]Servant, Whom I uphold, My elect in Whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice and right and reveal truth to the nations.^(A)

² He will not cry or shout aloud or cause His voice to be heard in the street.

³ A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench; He will bring forth justice in truth.^(B)

⁴ He will not fail or become weak or be crushed and discouraged till He has established justice in the earth; and the islands and coastal regions shall wait hopefully for Him and expect His direction and law.^(C)

⁵ Thus says God the Lord—He Who created the heavens and stretched them forth, He Who spread abroad the earth and that which comes out of it, He Who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:

⁶ I the Lord have called You [the Messiah] for a righteous purpose and in righteousness; I will take You by the hand and will keep You; I will give You for a covenant to the people [Israel], for a light to the nations [Gentiles],

⁷ To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.^(D)

⁸ I am the Lord; that is My name! And My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to graven images.

⁹ Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.

¹⁰ Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth! You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, the islands and coastal regions and the inhabitants of them [sing a song such as has never been heard in the heathen world]!

¹¹ Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voices, the villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of the rock [Sela or Petra] sing; let them shout from the tops of the mountains!

¹² Let them give glory to the Lord and declare His praise in the islands and coastal regions.

¹³ The Lord will go forth like a mighty man, He will rouse up His zealous indignation and vengeance like a warrior; He will cry, yes, He will shout aloud, He will do mightily against His enemies.

¹⁴ [Thus says the Lord] I have for a long time held My peace, I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant together.

¹⁵ I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their herbage; I will turn the rivers into islands, and I will dry up the pools.

¹⁶ And I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness into light before them and make uneven places into a plain. These things I have determined to do [for them]; and I will not leave them forsaken.

¹⁷ They shall be turned back, they shall be utterly put to shame, who trust in graven images, who say to molten images, You are our gods.

¹⁸ Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see!

¹⁹ Who is blind but My servant [Israel]? Or deaf like My messenger whom I send? Who is blind like the one who is at peace with Me [who has been admitted to covenant relationship with Me]? Yes, who is blind like the Lord’s servant?

²⁰ You have seen many things, but you do not observe or apprehend their true meaning. His ears are open, but he hears not!

²¹ It was the Lord’s pleasure for His righteousness’ sake [in accordance with a steadfast and consistent purpose] to magnify instruction and revelation and glorify them.

²² But this is a people robbed and plundered; they are all of them snared in holes and hidden in houses of bondage. They have become a prey, with no one to deliver them, a spoil, with no one to say, Restore them! [This shows the condition that will ensue as Israel’s punishment for not recognizing the Servant of the Lord and the day of His visit among them.] [Luke19:41-44.]

²³ Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear in the time to come?

²⁴ Who gave up Jacob [the kingdom of Judah] for spoil, and [the kingdom of] Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord, He against Whom we [of Judah] have sinned and in Whose ways they [of Israel] would not walk, neither were they obedient to His law or His teaching?

²⁵ Therefore He poured out upon [Israel] the fierceness of His anger and the strength of battle. And it set him on fire round about, yet he knew not [the lesson of repentance which the Assyrian conquest was intended to teach]; it burned him, but he did not lay it to heart.

43 But now [in spite of past judgments for Israel’s sins], thus says the Lord, He Who created you, O Jacob, and He Who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you [ransomed you by paying a price instead of leaving you captives]; I have called you by your name; you are Mine.

² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned or scorched, nor will the flame kindle upon you.

³ For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt [to the Babylonians] for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba [a province of Ethiopia] in exchange [for your release].

⁴ Because you are precious in My sight and honored, and because I love you, I will give men in return for you and peoples in exchange for your life.

⁵ Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east [where they are dispersed] and gather you from the west.^(E)

⁶ I will say to the north, Give up! and to the south, Keep not back. Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth—

⁷ Even everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, whom I have made.

⁸ Bring forth the blind people who have eyes and the deaf who have ears.

⁹ Let all the nations be gathered together and let the peoples be assembled. Who among [the idolaters] could predict this [that Cyrus would be the deliverer of Israel] and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear and acknowledge, It is the truth.^(F)

¹⁰ You are My witnesses, says the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know Me, believe Me and remain steadfast to Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me.

¹¹ I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no Savior.

¹² I have declared [the future] and have saved [the nation in times of danger], and I have shown [that I am God]—when there was no strange and alien god among you; therefore you are My witnesses, says the Lord, that I am God.

¹³ Yes, from the time of the first existence of day and from this day forth I am He; and there is no one who can deliver out of My hand. I will work, and who can hinder or reverse it?

¹⁴ Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent [one] to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, [with] all their nobles, even the Chaldeans, into the ships over which they rejoiced.

¹⁵ I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord, Who makes a way through the sea and a path through the mighty waters,

¹⁷ Who brings forth chariot and horse, army and mighty warrior. They lie down together, they cannot rise; they are extinguished, they are quenched like a lampwick:

¹⁸ Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old.

¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

²⁰ The beasts of the field honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen,^(G)

²¹ The people I formed for Myself, that they may set forth My praise [and they shall do it].

²² Yet you have not called upon Me [much less toiled for Me], O Jacob; but you have been weary of Me, O Israel!

²³ You have not brought Me your sheep and goats for burnt offerings, or honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not required you to serve with an offering or treated you as a slave by demanding tribute or wearied you with offering incense.

²⁴ You have not bought Me sweet cane with money, or satiated Me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have only burdened Me with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities.

²⁵ I, even I, am He Who blots out and cancels your transgressions, for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

²⁶ Put Me in remembrance [remind Me of your merits]; let us plead and argue together. Set forth your case, that you may be justified (proved right).

²⁷ Your first father [Jacob, in particular] sinned, and your teachers [the priests and the prophets—your mediators] transgressed against Me.

²⁸ And so I will profane the chief ones of the sanctuary and will deliver Jacob to the curse (the ban, a solemn anathema or excommunication) and [will subject] Israel to reproaches and reviling.

44 Yet now hear, O Jacob, My servant and Israel, whom I have chosen.

² Thus says the Lord, Who made you and formed you from the womb, Who will help you: Fear not, O Jacob, My servant, and you Jeshurun [the upright one—applied to Israel as a type of the Messiah], whom I have chosen.

³ For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing upon your descendants.^(H)

⁴ And they shall spring up among the grass like willows or poplars by the watercourses.

⁵ One will say, I am the Lord’s; and another will call himself by the name of Jacob; and another will write [even brand or tattoo] upon his hand, I am the Lord’s, and surname himself by the [honorable] name of Israel.

⁶ Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God.^(I)

⁷ Who is like Me? Let him [stand and] proclaim it, declare it, and set [his proofs] in order before Me, since I made and established the people of antiquity. [Who has announced from of old] the things that are coming? Then let them declare yet future things.

⁸ Fear not, nor be afraid [in the coming violent upheavals]; have I not told it to you from of old and declared it? And you are My witnesses! Is there a God besides Me? There is no [other] Rock; I know not any.

⁹ All who make graven idols are confusion, chaos, and worthlessness. Their objects (idols) in which they delight do not profit them, and their own witnesses (worshipers) do not see or know, so that they are put to shame.

¹⁰ Who is [such a fool as] to fashion a god or cast a graven image that is profitable for nothing?

¹¹ Behold, all his fellows shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen, [how can they make a god?] they are but men. Let them all be gathered together, let them stand forth; they shall be terrified, they shall be put to shame together.

¹² The ironsmith sharpens and uses a chisel and works it over the coals; he shapes [the core of the idol] with hammers and forges it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint.

¹³ The carpenter stretches out a line, he marks it out with a pencil or red ocher; he fashions [an idol] with planes and marks it out with the compasses; and he shapes it to have the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, that it may dwell in a house.

¹⁴ He hews for himself cedars, and takes the holm tree and the oak and lets them grow strong for himself among the trees of the forest; he plants a fir tree or an ash, and the rain nourishes it.

¹⁵ Then it becomes fuel for a man to burn; a part of it he takes and warms himself, yes, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. [Then out of the remainder, the leavings] he also makes a god and worships it! He [with his own hands] makes it into a graven image and falls down and worships it!

¹⁶ He burns part of the wood in the fire; with part of it he [cooks and] eats flesh, he roasts meat and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire!

¹⁷ And from what is left [of the log] he makes a god, his graven idol. He falls down to it, he worships it and prays to it and says, Deliver me, for you are my god!

¹⁸ They do not know or understand, for their eyes God has let become besmeared so that they cannot see, and their minds as well so that they cannot understand.

¹⁹ And no one considers in his mind, nor has he knowledge and understanding [enough] to say [to himself], I have burned part of this log in the fire, and also I have baked bread on its coals and have roasted meat and eaten it. And shall I make the remainder of it into an abomination [the very essence of what is disgusting, detestable, and shamefully vile in the eyes of a jealous God]? Shall I fall down and worship the stock of a tree [a block of wood without consciousness or life]?

²⁰ That kind of man feeds on ashes [and finds his satisfaction in ashes]! A deluded mind has led him astray, so that he cannot release and save himself, or ask, Is not [this thing I am holding] in my right hand a lie?

²¹ Remember these things [earnestly], O Jacob, O Israel, for you are My servant! I formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you shall not be forgotten by Me.

²² I have blotted out like a thick cloud your transgressions, and like a cloud your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

²³ Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, you depths of the earth; break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and He glorifies Himself in Israel.

²⁴ Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and He Who formed you from the womb: I am the Lord, Who made all things, Who alone stretched out the heavens, Who spread out the earth by Myself [who was with Me]?—

²⁵ [I am the Lord] Who frustrates the signs and confounds the omens [upon which the false prophets’ forecasts of the future are based] of the [boasting] liars and makes fools of diviners, Who turns the wise backward and makes their knowledge foolishness,^(J)

²⁶ [The Lord] Who confirms the word of His servant and performs the counsel of His messengers, Who says of Jerusalem, She shall [again] be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah, They shall [again] be built, and I will raise up their ruins,

²⁷ Who says to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up your rivers,

²⁸ Who says of Cyrus, He is My shepherd (ruler), and he shall perform all My pleasure and fulfill all My purpose—even saying of Jerusalem, She shall [again] be built, and of the temple, Your foundation shall [again] be laid.