CHAPTER 40
1 My people, be ye comforted, be ye comforted, saith your Lord God.
2 Speak ye to the heart of Jeru-salem, and call ye [to] it, for the malice thereof is [ful] filled, the wickedness thereof is forgiven; it hath received of the hand of the Lord double things for all his sins.
3 The voice of a crier in desert [or The voice of the one crying in desert], Make ye ready the way of the Lord, make ye rightful [or right] the paths of our God in wilderness.
4 Each valley shall be enhanced, and each mountain and little hill shall be made low; and shrewd things shall be into straight things, and sharp things shall be into plain ways.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be showed, and each man shall see together, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
6 The voice of God, saying, Cry thou. And I said, What shall I cry? Each flesh is hay, and all the glory thereof is as the flower of the field.
7 The hay is dried up, and the flower fell down, for the spirit of the Lord blew therein. Verily the people is hay;
8 the hay is dried up, and the flower fell down; but the word of the Lord dwelleth, either shall stand, without end.
9 Thou that preachest to Zion, go upon an high hill; thou that preachest to Jerusalem, enhance thy voice in strength; enhance thou, do not thou dread; say thou to the cities of Judah, Lo! your God.
10 Lo! the Lord God shall come in strength, and his arm shall hold lordship; lo! his meed is with him, and his work is before him.
11 As a shepherd he shall feed his flock, he shall gather [the] lambs in his arms, and he shall raise in his bosom; he shall bear [the] sheep with lamb.
12 Who meted [or measured] waters in a fist, and weighed heavens with a span? Who weighed the heaviness of the earth with three fingers, and weighed [the] mountains in a weigh, and [the] little hills in a balance?
13 Who helped the Spirit of the Lord, either who was his counsellor, and showed to him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and who learned him, and taught him the path of rightfulness [or rightwiseness], and learned him in knowing, and showed to him the way of prudence?
15 Lo! folks be as a drop of a bucket, and be areckoned as the tongue of a balance; lo! isles be as a little dust,
16 and the Lebanon shall not suffice to burn his sacrifice, and the beasts thereof shall not suffice to burnt sacrifice.
17 All folks be so before him, as if they be not; and they be reckoned as nothing and vain thing to him.
18 To whom therefore made ye God like? either what image shall ye set to him?
19 Whether a smith shall weld together an image, either a goldsmith shall figure it in gold, and a worker in silver shall dight it with pieces of silver?
20 A wise craftsman chooseth a strong tree, and unable to be rotten; he seeketh how he shall ordain a simulacrum, that shall not be moved.
21 Whether ye know not? whether ye heard not? whether it was not told to you from the beginning? whether ye understood not the foundaments of [the] earth?
22 Which sitteth on the compass of [the] earth, and the dwellers thereof be as locusts; which stretcheth forth heavens as nought, and spreadeth abroad those as a tabernacle to dwell.
23 Which giveth the searchers of privates, as if they be not, and [he] made the judges of [the] earth as a vain thing.
24 And soothly when the stock of them is neither planted, neither is sown, neither is rooted in [the] earth, he blew suddenly on them, and they dried up, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 And to what thing have ye likened me, and have made [me] even? saith the Holy.
26 Raise [up] your eyes on high, and see ye, who made these things of nought; which leadeth out in number the knighthood of them, and calleth all by name, for the multitude of his strength, and stalworth[y] ness, and might; neither one residue thing was.
27 Why sayest thou, Jacob, and speakest thou, Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my doom passed from my God?
28 Whether thou knowest not, either heardest thou not? God, everlasting Lord, that made of nought the ends of [the] earth, shall not fail, neither shall travail, neither ensearching of his wisdom is.
29 That giveth strength to the weary, and strength to them that be not, and multiplieth stalworth[y] ness.
30 Young men shall fail, and shall travail, and young men shall fall down in their sickness.
31 But they that hope in the Lord, shall change strength, they shall take feathers as eagles; they shall run, and shall not travail; they shall go, and shall not fail.