Isaiah 40

¹Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. ²Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she hath received of Jehovah’s hand double for all her sins.

³The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah; make level in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain: ⁵and the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

⁶The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. ⁷The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. ⁸The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.

⁹O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold, your God! ¹⁰Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. ¹¹He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and will gently lead those that have their young.

¹²Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? ¹³Who hath directed the Spirit of Jehovah, or being his counsellor hath taught him? ¹⁴With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? ¹⁵Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. ¹⁶And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering. ¹⁷All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity.

¹⁸To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? ¹⁹The image, a workman hath cast it, and the goldsmith overlayeth it with gold, and casteth for it silver chains. ²⁰He that is too impoverished for such an oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a skilful workman to set up a graven image, that shall not be moved. ²¹Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? ²²It is he that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in; ²³that bringeth princes to nothing; that maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. ²⁴Yea, they have not been planted; yea, they have not been sown; yea, their stock hath not taken root in the earth: moreover he bloweth upon them, and they wither, and the whirlwind taketh them away as stubble. ²⁵To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal to him? saith the Holy One. ²⁶Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.

²⁷Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from Jehovah, and the justice due to me is passed away from my God? ²⁸Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. ²⁹He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might he increaseth strength. ³⁰Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: ³¹but they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.