Isaiah / Comfort for Zion and the Majesty of God

Comfort for Zion and the Majesty of God

Isaiah 40:1-31

Chapter 40

¹ Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. ² Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her, for her host is filled, for her iniquity has been accepted, for she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins. ³ A voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the Arabah a highway for our God." ⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the ridge shall become a plain, and the rough places a valley. ⁵ And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. ⁶ A voice said, "Cry," and he said, "What shall I cry?" "All flesh is grass, and all its steadfast love is like the cultic priestly golden plate of the field." ⁷ Grass is dried up, the flower fades, for the wind of the LORD has blown on it. Surely the people are grass. ⁸ The grass has dried up, the blossom has withered, and the word of our God stands forever. ⁹ Go up on a high mountain, O herald of Zion; raise your voice with strength, O herald of Jerusalem; raise it—do not fear—say to the cities of Judah: "Behold, your God!" ¹⁰ Behold, the Lord the LORD will come with strength, and his arm ruling for him. Behold, his wages are with him, and his work before him. ¹¹ Like a shepherd he will shepherd his flock; he will gather lambs in his arm, and he will bear the nursing ones in his bosom; he will lead them. ¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and fitted the heavens with a span, and contained all the dust of the earth in a third, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in scales? ¹³ Who has directed the LORD's Spirit? Or who of his counsel will make him know anything? ¹⁴ With whom did he consult and make him understand, and teach him in the way of justice, and teach him knowledge and the way of understanding he made him know. ¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted like the dust of scales. Behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust. ¹⁶ And Lebanon is not sufficient for trees or its beasts, not sufficient for a burnt offering. ¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him; they are reckoned as nothing and tohu to him. ¹⁸ And to whom will you liken God, and what likeness will you set up for him? ¹⁹ The idol—the craftsman pours it, and the refiner refines it in gold; he beats it out, and the refiner fastens chains of silver. ²⁰ The poor man chooses wood that will not rot as an offering. He seeks a skilled craftsman for himself to prepare an idol that will not totter. ²¹ Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Do you not understand the foundations of the earth? ²² The one sitting upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants like grasshoppers, the one stretching out the heavens like a thin cloth and stretching them out like a tent for dwelling. ²³ He brings the one giving satraps to nonexistence, judges of the land like formlessness. ²⁴ Even they did not plant, even they did not sow, even their stump did not take root in the earth, and even he breathed on them and they withered, and the storm wind carries them away like stubble. ²⁵ And to whom will you liken me and make me equal? he says, Holy. ²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see. Who created these? The one who brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name. By the greatness of his might and the strength of his power not one is missing. ²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my justice passes away from my God”? ²⁸ Have you not known? Or have you not heard? The eternal God, the LORD, Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint and does not weary; there is no searching out of his understanding. ²⁹ He gives strength to the weary, and to the one without strength he multiplies might. ³⁰ Even youths grow weary and faint, and chosen ones stumble like those who stoop. ³¹ And those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not grow faint.