Isaiah 42:1-44:5

Tree of Life Version

⁸ “I am Adonai—that is My Name!
My glory I will not give to another,
Or My praise to graven images.
⁹ Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things.
Before they spring forth
    I announce them to you.”

¹⁰ Sing to Adonai a new song,
His praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea with all its fullness,
    islands and their inhabitants.
¹¹ Let the desert and its cities exult—
    the villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the dwellers of Sela sing for joy.
Let them shout for joy
    from the top of the mountains.
¹² Let them give glory to Adonai
and declare His praise in the islands.
¹³ Adonai goes out as a mighty one.
He stirs up His zeal like a man of war.
He will shout, yes, raise a war cry!
He will prevail over His enemies.

¹⁴ “I have held My peace a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now like a woman in labor I groan,
    gasping and panting at once.
¹⁵ I will lay waste mountains and hills,
    and dry up all their vegetation.
I will turn the rivers into islands,
    and dry up the pools.
¹⁶ I will bring the blind by a way they do not know.
in paths they have not known, I will guide them.
I will turn darkness before them to light
    and the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do,
    and I will not forsake them.
¹⁷ They will be turned back, utterly put to shame—
those trusting in idols,
who say to molten images, ‘You are our gods.’
¹⁸ Hear, you deaf!
Look, you blind, so you may see.
¹⁹ Who is blind, but My Servant?
Or deaf as My Messenger that I send?
Who is so blind as the one in covenant with Me,
    blind as Adonai’s Servant?
²⁰ You have seen many things,
    but you do not pay attention.
Though ears are open, no one hears.”^[i]

²¹ Adonai was pleased,
for the sake of His righteousness,
to make Torah great and glorious.
²² But this is a people robbed and looted.
all of them trapped in holes,
    hidden away in prisons.
They have become a prey
    with no one to deliver them,
and plunder,
    with none to say, “Give them back!”
²³ Who among you will give ear to this?
Who will listen and heed hereafter?
²⁴ Who gave Jacob to the looter,
    Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not Adonai?
Have we not sinned against Him?
In His ways they were unwilling to walk
and His Torah they did not obey.
²⁵ So He poured out on him the fury of His anger,
    and the fierceness of battle.
it blazed all around him, yet he did not understand it.
it burned him, yet he did not take it to heart.

¹¹ “I, I am Adonai—
and there is no savior beside Me.^[j]
12 I alone declared, saved and proclaimed,
and not some foreign god among you.
So you are My witnesses”
—it is a declaration of Adonai—
“and I am God.
¹³ From eternity, I am He.
None can deliver from My hand.
I act, and who can reverse it?”

¹⁴ Thus says Adonai,
    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“For your sake I will send to Babylon
    and bring down the fleeing Chaldeans, all of them,
    in the ships in which they exult.
¹⁵ I am Adonai, your Holy One,
the Creator of Israel, your King.”

¹⁶ Thus says Adonai,
who makes a way in the sea
and a path in the mighty waters.
¹⁷ who drew out chariots and horses,
    the army and the warrior
    (they will lie down together, and not rise again;
they are extinguished—quenched like a wick):
¹⁸ “Do not remember former things,
nor consider things of the past.
¹⁹ Here I am, doing a new thing;
Now it is springing up—
    do you not know about it?
I will surely make a way in the desert,
    rivers in the wasteland.
²⁰ The field animals honor Me
—the jackals and the ostriches—
because I give waters in the desert,
    rivers in the wilderness,
to give drink to My chosen people,
²¹ the people I formed for Myself,
    so they might declare My praise.
²² Yet you have not called on Me, Jacob,
for you have been weary of Me, Israel.
²³ You have not brought Me sheep for your burnt offerings;
nor have you honored Me with your sacrifices.
I did not compel you to serve offerings
    nor wearied you with incense.
²⁴ You have not spent money buying Me aromatic cane,
nor have you satisfied Me with the fat of your sacrifices.
Rather you burdened Me with your sins,
    wearied Me with your iniquities.
²⁵ I, I am the One who blots out
your transgressions for My own sake,
and will not remember your sins.
²⁶ Remind me, when we argue our case together—
    state your case, so you may be proved right.
²⁷ Your first father sinned,
and your mediators rebelled against Me.
²⁸ So I profaned the Sanctuary officials,
and gave Jacob over to destruction,
    and Israel to scorn.