Isaiah 41

¹ Renewed before Me shall be the coastlanders, and folkstems shall vary their vigor. Close shall they come. Then shall they speak. We will draw near together for judgment. ² Who roused one from the sunrise? A just one; and He is calling him to His foot, and He is setting the nations before him, and over kings is he swaying. And He is giving them, as soil, to his sword, and, as straw whisked away, to his bow, ³ and he is pursuing them, and passing in peace a path where his feet had not come before. ⁴ Who contrives and does these things, calling generations from the beginning? I, Yahweh, the First, and to the last times I am He! ⁵ The coastlanders see, and are fearing. The ends of the earth are trembling. They draw near and are arriving together. ⁶ Each man is helping his associate, and to his brother is he saying, "Courage!" ⁷ And the artificer is encouraging the refiner, the apportioner with the sledge, the hammerer on the anvil. One says of the soldering, "It is good!" And one is fortifying it with nails that it will not slip. ⁸ Now you, Israel, My servant; Jacob, whom I have chosen; the seed of Abraham, My love, whom I encourage; ⁹ from the ends of the land, and from beside it I called you. And I am saying to you, "My servant are you. I choose you, and I do not reject you. ¹⁰ You must not fear, for I am with you, and you must not take heed for yourself, for I am your Elohim. I make you resolute; indeed, I help you. Indeed, I uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness." ¹¹ Behold! Ashamed and confounded shall all be who were hot with you. They are coming to be as nothing. And perish shall all mortals who contend with you. ¹² You shall seek them, yet shall not find them. And the mortals with whom you strive shall come to be as nothing, and a limit is reached by the mortals who war with you. ¹³ For I, Yahweh, your Elohim, am holding fast your right hand, saying to you, "You must not fear; I, I help you. ¹⁴ You must not fear, worm Jacob, and death-doomed of Israel, I, I help you, averring is Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." ¹⁵ Behold! I constitute you a new spiked threshing sledge possessing serrated edges. You shall thresh the mountains and pulverize them, and the hills you shall make as trash. ¹⁶ You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away. And the tempest will scatter them. And you shall exult in Yahweh. And in the Holy One of Israel shall you boast. ¹⁷ The humble and the needy are seeking water, yet there is none. Their tongue is benumbed with thirst. I, Yahweh, will respond to them; the Elohim of Israel, I will not forsake them. ¹⁸ I will open up streams on ridges, and in the midst of valleys, springs. I will convert the wilderness into a pond of water, and arid land into vents of water. ¹⁹ I will bestow the cedar in the wilderness, the acacia and the myrtle and the oleaster tree. I will place the fir in the gorge, the elm and the box together, ²⁰ that they may see and know, and regard and use intelligence together, for the hand of Yahweh did all this, and the Holy One of Israel created it. ²¹ "Bring your contention near!" saying is Yahweh Elohim, "Bring your counselors close", saying is the King of Jacob. ²² Let them bring them close, and tell us what will happen. The former things, what they were, let them tell. And We will set our heart on them and know their hereafter. Or the coming things announce to Us. ²³ Tell what will arrive hereafter, and we will know that you are elohim. Indeed, you will do good and do evil. Then will we heed and see it together! ²⁴ Behold! You are from nothing, and your contrivance is from ashes. An abhorrence is one choosing in you. ²⁵ I rouse one from the north, and he shall arrive; one from the rising of the sun, and he shall proclaim in My name. And he shall trample on prefects as clay of a potter, and, as a potter is tramping the mud, so shall you be tramped. ²⁶ Who tells from the beginning, so We will know? And from beforetime, so We will say "Right"? Indeed, there is no telling; indeed, no announcing. Indeed, no one is hearing your sayings, ²⁷ first to Zion, "Behold! Behold them!" And to Jerusalem a tidings-bearer will I give for the path, ²⁸ yet I am seeing, and there is no man, and of these also, there is no counsellor, that I should ask them, and they should reply with a word. ²⁹ Behold! All of them are nothing. And their doings are limited. Wind and chaos are their molten images.