Beginning
The Servant of the Lord
49 Listen to me, O coastlands,
and pay attention, you peoples from afar.
The Lord called me from the womb;
from the body of my mother He named me.
2 He has made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of His hand He has hidden me
and made me a select arrow;
in His quiver He has hidden me.
3 He said to me, “You are My servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 Then I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity,
yet surely the justice due to me is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.”
5 Now says the Lord,
who formed me from the womb to be His servant,
to bring Jacob back to Him,
so that Israel might be gathered to Him
(yet I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,
and my God is my strength),
6 He says,
“It is a light thing that you should be My servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also make you a light to the nations
so that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
7 Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One,
to the despised one, to the one whom the nation abhors,
to the servant of rulers:
“Kings shall see and arise,
princes also shall worship,
because of the Lord who is faithful
and the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you.”
The Restoration of Israel
8 Thus says the Lord:
In an acceptable time I have heard you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you;
and I will preserve you, and give you
as a covenant of the people,
to restore the earth,
to make them inherit the desolate heritages,
9 saying to the prisoners, “Go forth,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the paths,
and their pastures shall be in all desolate heights;
10 they shall not hunger nor thirst,
neither shall the heat nor sun strike them;
for He who has mercy on them shall lead them,
even by the springs of water He shall guide them.
11 I will make all My mountains a road,
and My highways shall be raised up.
12 See, these shall come from afar;
and these will come from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Sinim.
13 Sing, O heavens!
And be joyful, O earth!
And break forth into singing, O mountains!
For the Lord has comforted His people
and will have mercy on His afflicted.
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
and the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 Can a woman forget her nursing child,
and have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget.
16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
your walls are continually before Me;
17 your builders hurry;
your destroyers and those who devastated you shall depart from you.
18 Lift up your eyes and look all around;
all these gather themselves together and come to you.
As I live, says the Lord,
you shall surely put on all of them as ornaments
and bind them on you as a bride does.
19 For your waste and your desolate places,
and the land of your destruction,
shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants,
and those who swallowed you up shall be far away.
20 The children whom you shall have,
after you have lost the others,
shall say again in your ears,
“The place is too cramped for me;
make room for me that I may dwell here.”
21 Then you shall say in your heart,
“Who bore these for me,
since I have lost my children and am barren,
a captive and a wanderer?
And who has brought these up?
I was left alone;
from where did these come?”
22 Thus says the Lord God:
See, I will lift up My hand to the nations
and set up My standard to the peoples;
and they shall bring your sons in their arms,
and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;
23 kings shall be your foster fathers
and their queens your nursing mothers;
they shall bow down to you with their faces toward the ground
and lick up the dust of your feet.
And you shall know that I am the Lord,
for those who wait for Me shall not be ashamed.
24 Can the prey be taken from the mighty
or the captives of a tyrant be delivered?
25 For thus says the Lord:
Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
and the prey of the tyrant shall be delivered;
for I will contend with him who contends with you,
and I will save your sons.
26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh,
and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine.
And all flesh shall know
that I, the Lord, am your Savior
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
The Servant, Hope of Israel
50 Thus says the Lord:
Where is the certificate of divorce
by which I sent your mother away?
Or to which of My creditors
did I sell you?
For your iniquities you were sold,
and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
2 Why, when I came, was there no man?
When I called, was there no one to answer?
Is My hand so short that it cannot redeem?
Or have I no power to deliver?
Indeed, at My rebuke I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers a wilderness;
Their fish stink because there is no water,
and die for thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness,
and I make sackcloth their covering.
4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned,
that I may know how to sustain him who is weary with a word;
He awakens me morning by morning;
He awakens my ear to listen as the learned.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
nor did I turn back.
6 I gave my back to those who struck me,
and my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard;
I did not cover my face
from shame and spitting.
7 For the Lord God will help me;
therefore, I shall not be disgraced;
therefore, I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
8 He who vindicates me is near;
who will contend with me?
Let us stand up to each other.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me.
9 Certainly the Lord God will help me;
who is he who condemns me?
Indeed they all shall grow old as a garment;
the moth shall eat them up.
10 Who among you fears the Lord,
who obeys the voice of His servant,
who walks in darkness
and has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the Lord,
and rely upon his God.
11 But now, all you who kindle a fire,
who encompass yourselves with sparks:
Walk in the light of your fire
and among the sparks that you have ignited.
This you shall have from My hand:
You shall lie down in sorrow.
The Eternal Salvation of Zion
51 Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2 Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah who bore you;
for I called him alone,
and blessed him, and multiplied him.
3 For the Lord shall comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
and her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness shall be found in it,
thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
4 Listen to Me, O My people;
and give ear to Me, O My nation:
for a law shall proceed from Me,
and I will set My justice as a light of the peoples.
5 My righteousness is near,
My salvation has gone forth,
and My arms shall judge the peoples;
the coastlands shall wait for Me,
and for My arm they shall expectantly wait.
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
and look on the earth beneath.
For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke,
and the earth shall grow old like a garment,
and those who dwell in it shall die in like manner;
but My salvation shall be forever,
and My righteousness shall not be abolished.
7 Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is My law;
do not fear the reproach of men
nor be afraid of their revilings.
8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment,
and the worm shall eat them like wool;
but My righteousness shall be forever
and My salvation from generation to generation.
9 Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the Lord.
Awake as in the ancient days,
in the generations of old.
Was it not You who cut Rahab to pieces
and wounded the dragon?
10 Was it not You who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea a pathway
for the ransomed to pass over?
11 Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing to Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their head.
They shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
12 I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who shall die,
and of the son of man who shall be made as grass,
13 and forget the Lord your maker
who has stretched out the heavens
and laid the foundations of the earth?
And have feared continually every day
because of the fury of the oppressor
as he makes ready to destroy?
Yet where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The exile shall soon be freed,
and shall not die in the dungeon,
nor will his bread be lacking.
15 But I am the Lord your God
who divided the sea whose waves roared;
the Lord of Hosts is His name.
16 I have put My words in your mouth,
and I have covered you in the shadow of My hand
that I may plant the heavens,
and lay the foundations of the earth,
and say to Zion, “You are My people.”
The Wrath of God Ceases
17 Awake, awake,
stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord
the cup of His fury;
the cup of reeling
you have drained to the dregs.
18 There is no one to guide her
among all the sons she has brought forth;
nor is there anyone to take hold of her hand
of all the sons that she has brought up.
19 These two things have befallen you;
who shall be mournful for you?
Desolation, and destruction, and famine, and sword—
how shall I comfort you?
20 Your sons have fainted;
they lie at the head of all the streets
as an antelope in a net;
they are full of the fury of the Lord,
the rebuke of your God.
21 Therefore please hear this,
you afflicted who are drunk but not with wine.
22 Thus says your Lord, the Lord,
and your God who pleads the cause of His people:
See, I have taken out of your hand
the cup of reeling,
even the dregs of the cup of My fury;
you will never drink it again.
23 But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,
who have said to you,
“Lie down that we may walk over you.”
And you have laid your back as the ground
and as the street for those who walk on it.
52 Awake, awake!
Put on your strength, O Zion;
put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city.
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
will no longer enter you.
2 Shake yourself from the dust;
arise, O captive 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;
then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5 Now therefore, what do I have here, says the Lord,
seeing that My people have been taken away for nothing?
Those who rule over them make them wail,
says the Lord,
and My name is continually blasphemed
all day long.
6 Therefore, My people shall know My name;
therefore, they shall know in that day
that I am He who does speak:
Here I am.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who proclaims peace,
who brings good news of happiness,
who proclaims salvation,
who says to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
8 Your watchmen lift up their voices;
they sing joyfully together;
for they shall see with their own eyes
when the Lord brings Zion back.
9 Break forth into joy, sing together,
you waste places of Jerusalem.
For the Lord has comforted His people;
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord has bared His holy arm
in the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.
11 Depart, depart, go out from there,
touch no unclean thing;
go out of the midst of her; be clean,
you who bear the vessels of the Lord.
12 For you shall not go out with haste
nor go by flight.
For the Lord will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
The Suffering Servant
13 See, My servant shall deal prudently;
he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14 Just as many were astonished at you,
his visage was so marred, more than any man,
and his form more than the sons of men;
15 so he shall sprinkle many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths at him;
for that which had not been told them they shall see,
and that which they had not heard they shall consider.
53 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before Him as a tender plant
and as a root out of a dry ground.
He has no form or majesty that we should look upon him
nor appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him;
he was despised, and we did not esteem him.
4 Surely he has borne our grief
and carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon him,
and by his stripes we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray;
each of us has turned to his own way,
but the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away,
and who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was struck.
9 His grave was assigned with the wicked,
yet with the rich in his death,
because he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; He has put him to grief.
If he made himself as an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days,
and the good pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the anguish of his soul
and be satisfied.
By his knowledge My righteous servant shall justify the many,
for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death,
and he was numbered with the transgressors,
thus he bore the sin of many
and made intercession for the transgressors.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.