Isaiah — Chapter 42

¹Behold, my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my Spirit on him; he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

²He will not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street.

³A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth.

⁴He will not fail nor be discouraged, until he have set justice in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.

⁵Thus says God Yahweh, he who created the heavens, and stretched them forth; he who spread abroad the earth and that which comes out of it; he who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk therein:

⁶I, Yahweh, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

⁷to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison-house.

⁸I am Yahweh, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to engraved images.

⁹Behold, the former things have happened, and new things do I declare. Before they spring forth I tell you of them.

¹⁰Sing to Yahweh a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth; you who go down to the sea, and all that is therein, the isles, and the inhabitants of it.

¹¹Let the wilderness and the cities of it lift up [their voice], the villages that Kedar does inhabit; let the inhabitants of Sela sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.

¹²Let them give glory to Yahweh, and declare his praise in the islands.

¹³Yahweh will go forth as a mighty man; he will stir up [his] zeal like a man of war: he will cry, yes, he will shout aloud; he will do mightily against his enemies.

¹⁴I have long time held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: [now] will I cry out like a travailing woman; I will gasp and pant together.

¹⁵I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the pools.

¹⁶I will bring the blind by a way that they don`t know; in paths that they don`t know will I lead them; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things will I do, and I will not forsake them.

¹⁷They shall be turned back, they shall be utterly put to shame, who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, You are our gods.

¹⁸Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see.

¹⁹Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is at peace, and blind as Yahweh`s servant?

²⁰You see many things, but don`t observe. His ears are open, but he doesn`t hear.

²¹It pleased Yahweh, for his righteousness` sake, to magnify the law, and make it honorable.

²²But this is a people robbed and plundered; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison-houses: they are for a prey, and none delivers; for a spoil, and none says, Restore.

²³Who is there among you who will give ear to this? who will listen and hear for the time to come?

²⁴Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Didn`t Yahweh? he against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they would not walk, neither were they obedient to his law.

²⁵Therefore he poured on him the fierceness of his anger, and the strength of battle; and it set him on fire round about, yet he didn`t know; and it burned him, yet he didn`t lay it to heart.