1Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek Yahweh: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry-pit from which you were dug.
2Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you in travail; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him and made him many.
3For Yahweh has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her ruins, and made her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of Yahweh. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of song.
4Attend to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for instruction will go forth from me, and my justice I will set as a light to the peoples.
5My righteousness is near, my salvation has gone forth, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.
6Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die like gnats. But my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not be shattered.
7Listen to me, you who know righteousness, a people with my instruction in their heart: do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be shattered by their revilings.
8For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to generation of generations.
9Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Yahweh! Awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?
10Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to pass over?
11So the ransomed of Yahweh will return; they will come to Zion with a ringing cry, and everlasting joy will be upon their heads. Joy and gladness will overtake them; sorrow and sighing will flee away.
12I, I am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you fear man who dies, and a son of man who is made like grass?
13And you have forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you dread continually, all the day long, before the fury of the oppressor, as though he were ready to destroy. But where is the fury of the oppressor?
14The one bowed down hastens to be released; he will not die in the pit, nor will his bread be lacking.
15For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—Yahweh of hosts is his name.
16And I have put my words in your mouth, and covered you in the shadow of my hand—to plant the heavens and to found the earth, and to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’
17Rouse yourself, rouse yourself, arise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of Yahweh the cup of his fury; you have drunk, you have drained to the dregs the goblet, the cup of reeling.
18There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne, and none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has raised.
19These two things have befallen you—who will grieve for you?—the devastation and the breaking, the famine and the sword. Who can comfort you?
20Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a net, filled with the fury of Yahweh, the rebuke of your God.
21Therefore hear this now, O afflicted one, and drunk—but not with wine:
22Thus says your Lord, Yahweh, and your God who contends for his people: Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of reeling, the goblet, the cup of my fury; you will no longer drink it again.
23And I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may pass over’; and you made your back like the ground and like the street for those who pass over.
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