Chapter 41

¹Let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to judgment together. ²Who hath raised up the just one from the east, hath called him to follow him? he shall give the nations in his sight, and he shall rule over kings: he shall give them as the dust to his sword, as stubble driven by the wind, to his bow. ³He shall pursue them, he shall pass in peace, no path shall appear after his feet. ⁴Who hath wrought and done these things, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, I am the first and the last. ⁵The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were astonished, they drew near, and came. ⁶Every one shall help his neighbour, and shall say to his brother: Be of good courage. ⁷The coppersmith striking with the hammer encouraged him that forged at that time, saying: It is ready for soldering: and he strengthened it with nails, that it should not be moved. ⁸But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend: ⁹In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called thee, and said to thee: Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away. ¹⁰Fear not, for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I have strengthened thee, and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee. ¹¹Behold all that fight against thee shall be confounded and ashamed, they shall be as nothing, and the men shall perish that strive against thee. ¹²Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find the men that resist thee: they shall be as nothing: and as a thing consumed the men that war against thee. ¹³For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and say to thee: Fear not, I have helped thee. ¹⁴Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁵I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shall thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt make the hills as chaff. ¹⁶Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful. ¹⁷The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. ¹⁸I will open rivers in the high bills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters. ¹⁹I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together: ²⁰That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. ²¹Bring your cause near, saith the Lord: bring hither, if you have any thing to allege, saith the King of Jacob. ²²Let them come, and tell us all things that are to come: tell us the former things what they were: and we will set our heart upon them, and shall know the latter end of them, and tell us the things that are to come. ²³Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that ye are gods. Do ye also good or evil, if you can: and let us speak, and see together. ²⁴Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which hath no being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination. ²⁵I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun: he shall call upon my name, and he shall make princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay. ²⁶Who bath declared from the beginning, that we may know: and from time of old, that we may say: Thou art just. There is none that sheweth, nor that foretelleth, nor that heareth your words. ²⁷The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist. ²⁸And I saw, and there was no one even among them to consult, or who, when I asked, could answer a word. ²⁹Behold they are all in the wrong, and their works are vain: their idols are wind and vanity.