The LORD Comforts Zion

¹ “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness,
You who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.
² Look to Abraham your father,
And to Sarah who bore you;
For I called him alone,
And blessed him and increased him.”
³ For the LORD will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
⁴ “ Listen to Me, My people;
And give ear to Me, O My nation:
For law will proceed from Me,
And I will make My justice rest
As a light of the peoples.
⁵ My righteousness is near,
My salvation has gone forth,
And My arms will judge the peoples;
The coastlands will wait upon Me,
And on My arm they will trust.
⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
And look on the earth beneath.
For the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth will grow old like a garment,
And those who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be abolished.
⁷ “ Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
You people in whose heart is My law:
Do not fear the reproach of men,
Nor be afraid of their insults.
⁸ For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
And the worm will eat them like wool;
But My righteousness will be forever,
And My salvation from generation to generation.”
⁹ Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD!
Awake as in the ancient days,
In the generations of old.
AreYou not the arm that cut Rahab apart,
And wounded the serpent?
¹⁰ Are You not the One who dried up the sea,
The waters of the great deep;
That made the depths of the sea a road
For the redeemed to cross over?
¹¹ So the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness;
Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
¹² “ I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you should be afraid
Of a man who will die,
And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?
¹³ And you forget the LORD your Maker,
Who stretched out the heavens
And laid the foundations of the earth;
You have feared continually every day
Because of the fury of the oppressor,
When he has prepared to destroy.
And where is the fury of the oppressor?
¹⁴ The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed,
That he should not die in the pit,
And that his bread should not fail.
¹⁵ But I am the LORD your God,
Who divided the sea whose waves roared—
The LORD of hosts is His name.
¹⁶ And I have put My words in your mouth;
I have covered you with the shadow of My hand,
That I may plant the heavens,
Lay the foundations of the earth,
And say to Zion, ‘You are My people.’”

God’s Fury Removed

¹⁷ Awake, awake!
Stand up, O Jerusalem,
You who have drunk at the hand of the LORD
The cup of His fury;
You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling,
And drained it out.
¹⁸ There is no one to guide her
Among all the sons she has brought forth;
Nor is there any who takes her by the hand
Among all the sons she has brought up.
¹⁹ These two things have come to you;
Who will be sorry for you?—
Desolation and destruction, famine and sword—
By whom will I comfort you?
²⁰ Your sons have fainted,
They lie at the head of all the streets,
Like an antelope in a net;
They are full of the fury of the LORD,
The rebuke of your God.
²¹ Therefore please hear this, you afflicted,
And drunk but not with wine.
²² Thus says your Lord,
The LORD and your God,
Who pleads the cause of His people:

“ See, I have taken out of your hand
The cup of trembling,
The dregs of the cup of My fury;
You shall no longer drink it.
²³ But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,
Who have said to you,^[a]

‘ Lie down, that we may walk over you.’
And you have laid your body like the ground,
And as the street, for those who walk over.”