1“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.
2Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call out to her that her warfare is complete, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.
3A voice is calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the rugged ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
5And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see it, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.
6A voice says, “Call out!” And he said, “What shall I call out?” All flesh is grass, and all its loyal love is like the flower of the field.
7Grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of Yahweh blows upon it. Surely the people are grass.
8Grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
9Get up onto a high mountain, herald of Zion; lift up your voice with strength, herald of Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”
10Behold, the Lord Yahweh comes with strength, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
11Like a shepherd he tends his flock; in his arm he gathers the lambs, and in his bosom he carries them; the nursing ewes he gently leads.
12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and held the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains on a scale and the hills in a balance?
13Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh, or as his counselor has taught him?
14With whom did he take counsel, that he gave him understanding, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and made known to him the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are reckoned as dust on the scales; behold, he lifts up the coastlands like fine dust.
16And Lebanon is not enough for fuel, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering.
17All the nations are as nothing before him; they are reckoned by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18To whom, then, will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?
19The idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it.
20He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple.
21Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth?
22It is he who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.
23It is he who reduces rulers to nothing and makes the judges of the earth like emptiness.
24Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them and they wither, and the storm carries them off like stubble.
25“To whom, then, will you liken me, that I should be equal to him?” says the Holy One.
26Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; through the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
27Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and my justice passes away from my God”?
28Do you not know? Have you not heard? Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29He gives strength to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases power.
30Youths grow faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall,
31But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.
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