6
7
8But you, Israel my servant,
you, Jacob whom I have chosen,
race of Abraham my friend,
9I have taken you up,
have fetched you from the ends of the earth,
and summoned you from its farthest corners,
I have called you my servant,
have chosen you and not cast you off:
10fear nothing, for I am with you;
be not afraid, for I am your God.
I strengthen you, I help you,
I support you with my victorious right hand.
11Now shall all who defy you
be disappointed and put to shame;
all who set themselves against you
shall be as nothing; they shall vanish.
12You will look for your assailants but not find them;
all who take up arms against you
shall be as nothing, nothing at all.
13For I, the LORD your God,
take you by the right hand;
I say to you, Do not fear;
it is I who help you,
14fear not, Jacob you worm and Israel poor louse.
It is I who help you, says the LORD,
your ransomer, the Holy One of Israel.
15See, I will make of you a sharp threshing-sledge,
new and studded with teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains and crush them
and reduce the hills to chaff;
16you shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away
and a great gale shall scatter them.
Then shall you rejoice in the LORD
and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17The wretched and the poor look for water and find none,
their tongues are parched with thirst;
but I the LORD will give them an answer,
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18I will open rivers among the sand-dunes
and wells in the valleys;
I will turn the wilderness into pools
and dry land into springs of water;
19I will plant cedars in the wastes,
and acacia and myrtle and wild olive;
the pine shall grow on the barren heath
side by side with fir and box,
20that men may see and know,
may once for all give heed and understand
that the LORD himself has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has performed it.
21Come, open your plea, says the LORD,
present your case, says Jacob's King;
22let them come forward, these idols,
let them foretell the future.
Let them declare the meaning of past events
that we may give our minds to it;
let them predict things that are to be
that we may know their outcome.
23Declare what will happen hereafter;
then we shall know you are gods.
Do what you can, good or ill,
anything that may grip us with fear and awe.
24You cannot! You are sprung from nothing,
your works are rotten;
whoever chooses you is vile as you are.
25I roused one from the north, and he obeyed;
I called one from the east, summoned him in my name,
he marches over viceroys as if they were mud,
like a potter treading his clay.
26Tell us, who declared this from the beginning, that we might know it,
or told us beforehand so that we could say, 'He was right'?
Not one declared, not one foretold,
not one heard a sound from you.
27Here is one who will speak first as advocate for Zion,
here I appoint defending counsel for Jerusalem;
28but from the other side no advocate steps forward
and, when I look, there is no one there.
I ask a question and no one answers;
29see what empty things they are!
Nothing that they do has any worth,
their effigies are wind, mere nothings.
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