Isaiah 51

Yahweh Comforts Zion

¹“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,

Look to the rock from which you were hewn,

²Look to Abraham your father,

For I called him alone,

³For Yahweh will comfort Zion;

And he will make its wilderness like Eden,

Joy and gladness will be found in it,

⁴“Listen attentively to me, my people,

For a teaching will go out from me,

⁵My righteousness is near; my salvation has gone out,

The coastlands wait for me,

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens

for the heavens will be torn to pieces like smoke,

But my salvation will be forever,

⁷Listen to me, you who know righteousness,

you must not fear the reproach of men,

⁸For a moth will eat them like garments;

but my righteousness will be forever,

⁹Awake! Awake; put on strength, O arm of Yahweh!

Are you not the one who cut Rahab in pieces,

¹⁰Are you not the one who dried up the sea,

the one who made the depths of the sea a way

¹¹So the redeemed ones of Yahweh shall return,[#Or “And”]

Joy and gladness shall appear;

¹²“I, I am he who comforts you;

who are you that you are afraid of man? He dies!

¹³And you have forgotten Yahweh, your maker,

And you tremble continually, all day,

But where is the wrath of the oppressor?

And he shall not die in the pit,

¹⁵For I am Yahweh, your God,[#Or “And”]

who stirs up the sea,

Yahweh of hosts is his name.

¹⁶And I have put my words in your mouth,

to plant the heavens

¹⁷Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself!

you have drunk the goblet, the cup of staggering;

¹⁸There is no one who guides her among all the children she has borne,[#Or “from”]

¹⁹Two things here have happened to you—who will show sympathy for you?—[#Literally “wander”]

²⁰Your children have fainted;

those who are full of the wrath of Yahweh,

²¹Therefore hear now this afflicted one

²²Thus says your Lord, Yahweh,

“Look! I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering.

²³And I will put it in the hand of your tormenters,

And you have made your back like the ground,