Chapter 50

¹ Thus saith the Lord, Of what kind is your mother's bill of divorcement, by which I put her away? or to which debtor have I sold you? Behold, ye are sold for your sins, and for your iniquities have I put your mother away. ² Why did I come, and there was no man? why did I call, and there was none to hearken? Is not my hand strong to redeem? or can I not deliver? behold, by my rebuke I will dry up the sea, and make rivers a wilderness; and their fish shall be dried up because there is no water, and shall die for thirst. ³ I will clothe the sky with darkness, and will make its covering as sackcloth.

^{4 1}The Lord even God gives me the tongue of instruction, to know when it is fit to speak a word: he has appointed for me early, he has given me an ear to hear: ⁵ and the instruction of the Lord, even the Lord, opens mine ears, and I do not disobey, nor dispute. ⁶ I gave my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows; and I turned not away my face from the shame of spitting: ⁷ but the Lord God became my helper; therefore I was not ashamed, but I set my face as a solid rock; and I know that I shall never be ashamed, ⁸ for he that has justified me draws near; who is he that pleads with me? let him stand up against me at the same time: yea, who is he that pleads with me? let him draw nigh to me. ⁹ Behold, the Lord, the Lord, will help me; who will hurt me? behold, all ye shall wax old as a garment, and a moth shall devour you.

¹⁰ Who is among you that fears the Lord? let him hearken to the voice of his servant: ye that walk in darkness, and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon God. ¹¹ Behold, ye all kindle a fire,

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and feed a flame: walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which ye have kindled. This has happened to you for my sake; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

Chapter 51

¹ Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord: look to the solid rock, which ye have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which ye have dug. ² Look to Abraam your father, and to Sarrha that bore you: for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him. ³ And now I will comfort thee, O Sion: and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as a garden, and her ²western places as the garden of the Lord; they shall find in her gladness and exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.

⁴ Hear me, hear me, my people; and ye kings, hearken to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment shall be for a light of ³the nations. ⁵ My righteousness speedily draws nigh, and my salvation shall go forth ⁴as light, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust. ⁶ Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my righteousness shall not fail.

⁷ Hear me, ye that know judgment, the people in whose heart is my law: fear not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their contempt. ⁸ For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth, so shall they be consumed; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation for all generations.

⁹ Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, and put on the strength of thine arm; awake as in ⁵the early time, as the ancient generation. ¹⁰ Art thou not it that dried the sea, the water, even the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered and redeemed? ¹¹ for by the help of the Lord they shall return, and come to Sion with joy and everlasting exultation, for praise and joy shall come upon their head: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away.

¹² I, even I, am he that comforts thee: consider who thou art, that thou wast afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass. ¹³ And thou hast forgotten God who made thee, who made the sky and founded the earth; and thou wert continually afraid because of the wrath of him that afflicted thee: for whereas he counselled to take thee away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted thee? ¹⁴ For in thy deliverance he shall not halt, nor tarry; ¹⁵ for I am thy God, that troubles the sea, and causes the waves thereof to roar: the Lord of hosts is my name. ¹⁶ I will put my words into thy mouth, and I will shelter thee under

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the shadow of mine hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and the Lord shall say to Sion, Thou art my people.

¹⁷ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury: for thou hast drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of wrath: ¹⁸ and there was none to comfort thee of all the children whom thou borest; and there was none to take hold of thine hand, not even of all the children whom thou has reared. ¹⁹ Wherefore these things are against thee; who shall sympathize with thee in thy grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort thee? ²⁰ Thy sons are the perplexed ones, that sleep at the top of every street as a half-boiled beet; they that are full of the anger of the Lord, caused to faint by the Lord God.

²¹ Therefore hear, thou afflicted one, and drunken, but not with wine; ²² thus saith the Lord God that judges his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of calamity, the cup of my wrath; and thou shalt not drink it any more. ²³ And I will give it into the hands of them that injured thee, and them that afflicted thee; who said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may pass over: and thou didst level thy body with the ground to them passing by without.