The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the suffering and afflicted. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted, to announce to them a season of joy and to comfort all who mourn. I have been sent to give to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of a spirit of despair, and to make them strong and renowned throughout their lifetime.
The ruins of Israel will be rebuilt, and the devastations will be restored. Foreigners will come to rebuild your ruins and restore your devastations. You will be called the priests of the Lord, and the ministers of our God will be said of you. You will eat the wealth of nations, and you will boast in their riches. For your shame will be replaced with a double portion, and instead of humiliation, you will shout for joy over your inheritance.
I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.
I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, like a bridegroom wearing a turban, and like a bride adorned with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its buds, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all nations.
The Lord has sworn to me with his right hand and with his strong arm: “I will give you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.” I am the Lord; that is my name! My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.
The former things have passed away; new things I now declare. Before they spring forth, I tell you of them. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands and their inhabitants. Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voices, the villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord, and declare his praise in the coastlands.
The Lord will go out like a mighty man; he will stir up his zeal like a warrior. He will cry out, yes, he will shout against his enemies. I have held my peace for a long time; I have been still and restrained myself. Now, like a woman in labor, I will cry out, I will gasp and pant. I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation. I will make the rivers coastlands, and dry up the pools.
And I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them. They will be turned back, they will be utterly put to shame, who trust in carved images, who say to cast metal images, “You are our gods.”
Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is at peace with me, or blind as the servant of the Lord? You see many things, but you do not observe them; your ears are open, but no one hears. The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness, to magnify his law and make it glorious.
But this is a people robbed and plundered; all of them are trapped in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become prey with no one to rescue, booty with no one to say, “Restore!” Who among you will give ear to this? Who will pay attention and listen for the time to come? Who gave Jacob to the robber, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?
Therefore he poured out on them the fury of his anger and the strength of battle. It surrounded them with flames, but they did not know; it burned them, but they did not take it to heart. But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give men in exchange for you, and peoples in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth—every one who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.’
Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified; or let them hear and say, “It is true.” You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me.
I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,” declares the Lord. “I am God, and also after me. There is no Rock; I know not any, and there is none besides me, who can rescue and save.”
Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, “are righteousness and strength;” to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him.
In the Lord shall all the descendants of Israel be justified, and shall glory.
