Isaiah 26

¹On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;

he sets up victory

like walls and bulwarks.

²Open the gates,

so that the righteous nation that keeps faith

may enter in.

³Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—

in peace because they trust in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord forever,

for in the Lord God

you have an everlasting rock.

⁵For he has brought low

the inhabitants of the height;

the lofty city he lays low.

He lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

⁶The foot tramples it,

the feet of the poor,

the steps of the needy.

⁷The way of the righteous is level;

O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.

⁸In the path of your judgments,

O Lord, we wait for you;

your name and your renown

are the soul’s desire.

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night,

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰If favor is shown to the wicked,

they do not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness they deal perversely

and do not see the majesty of the Lord.

¹¹O Lord, your hand is lifted up,

but they do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,

for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.

¹³O Lord our God,

other lords besides you have ruled over us,

but we acknowledge your name alone.

¹⁴The dead do not live;

shades do not rise—

because you have punished and destroyed them,

and wiped out all memory of them.

¹⁵But you have increased the nation, O Lord,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶O Lord, in distress they sought you,

they poured out a prayer

when your chastening was on them.

¹⁷Like a woman with child,

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near her time,

so were we because of you, O Lord;

¹⁸we were with child, we writhed,

but we gave birth only to wind.

We have won no victories on earth,

and no one is born to inhabit the world.

¹⁹Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.

O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a radiant dew,

and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while

until the wrath is past.

²¹For the Lord comes out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;

the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no longer cover its slain.