Isaiah 42

The Mission of Yahweh’s Servant

¹Look! here is my servant; I hold him,

I have put my spirit on him;

²He will not cry out and lift up

³He will not break a broken reed,

⁴He will not grow faint,

until he has established justice in the earth.

⁵Thus says the God, Yahweh,

and stretched them out,

who gives breath to the people upon it

⁶“I am Yahweh; I have called you in righteousness,

and I have given you as a covenant of the people,

⁷to open the blind eyes,

⁸I am Yahweh; that is my name,

and I do not give my glory to another,

⁹Look! the former things have come,

A Song of Praise to Yahweh

¹⁰Sing a new song to Yahweh;

you who go down to the sea and that which fills it,

¹¹Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice,

Let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy;

¹²Let them give glory to Yahweh[#Or “establish”]

¹³Yahweh goes forth like a mighty warrior;

He raises the war cry, indeed he raises the battle shout;

¹⁴I have been silent for a long time;

I have restrained myself like one giving birth;

¹⁵I will cause mountains and hills to dry up,

and I will make rivers like islands,

¹⁶And I will lead the blind by a road they do not know;

I will make darkness in their presence into light

These are the things I will do,

¹⁷They shall turn back;

those who trust in an image,

Blind and Deaf Israel

¹⁸Deaf people, listen!

¹⁹Who is blind but my servant

Who is blind like the one who is repaid

²⁰You see many things, but you do not observe.[#Or “and”]

²¹Yahweh was willing for the sake of his righteousness;

²²But this is a people plundered and looted; all of them are trapped in holes,[#Or “And”]

They have become like plunder, and there is no one who saves;

²³Who among you will heed this,

²⁴Who gave Jacob to a plunderer[#The reading tradition (Qere) has “as plunder”]

Was it not Yahweh, against whom we have sinned?

And they were not willing to walk in his ways,

²⁵So he poured the wrath of his anger upon him[#Or “and”]

And it set him afire all around, but he did not understand;