2 1 wThe people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
Isaiah 42
1 bBehold cmy dservant, whom I uphold,
emy chosen, fin whom my soul delights;
gI have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged1
till he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.
5 Thus says God, the Lord,
hwho created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
6 “I am the Lord; I have called you2 in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
iI will give you as a covenant for the people,
a jlight for the nations,
7 kto open the eyes that are blind,
lto bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8 I am the Lord; mthat is my name;
nmy glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and onew things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.”
10 Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.
11 Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the top of the mountains.
12 Let them pgive glory to the Lord,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.
13 The Lord goes out qlike a mighty man,
like a man of war he stirs up his rzeal;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.
14 For a long time sI have held my peace;
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor;
I will gasp and pant.
15 I will lay waste mountains and hills,
and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn the rivers into islands,3
and dry up the pools.
16 And I will lead the blind
in a way that they do not know,
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
tthe rough places into level ground.
These are the things I do,
and I do not forsake them.
17 They are turned back and utterly uput to shame,
who trust in carved idols,
who say to metal images,
“You are our gods.”
18 Hear, you deaf,
and look, you blind, that you may see!
19 Who is blind but my servant,
or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated one,4
or blind as the servant of the Lord?
20 He sees many things, but does not observe them;
his ears are open, but he does not hear.
21 The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake,
to magnify his law and make it glorious.
22 But this is a people plundered and looted;
they are all of them trapped in holes
and hidden in prisons;
they have become plunder with none to rescue,
spoil with none to say, “Restore!”
23 Who among you will give ear to this,
will attend and listen for the time to come?
24 Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey?
25 So he poured on him the heat of his anger
and the might of battle;
it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;
it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.
Isaiah 6–7
1 In the year that King Uzziah wdied I saw the Lord xsitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train1 of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. yEach had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house awas filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; bfor my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he ctouched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, d“Go, and say to this people:
e“‘Keep on hearing,3 but do not understand;
keep on seeing,4 but do not perceive.’
10 fMake the heart of this people dull,5
and their ears heavy,
and gblind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
12 and the Lord removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned6 again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed7 is its stump.
1 hIn the days of iAhaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, jRezin the king of Syria and kPekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. 2 When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with8 Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz9 and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
3 And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub10 your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the lWasher’s Field. 4 And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, 6 “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it11 for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” 7 thus says the Lord God:
“‘It shall not stand,
and it shall not come to pass.
8 For the head of Syria is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
And within sixty-five years
mEphraim will be shattered from being a people.
9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you12 are not firm in nfaith,
you will not be firm at all.’”
10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: 11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your13 God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” 13 And he14 said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you oweary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. pBehold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name qImmanuel.15 15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For rbefore the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. 17 The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since sthe day that Ephraim departed from Judah—tthe king of Assyria!”
18 In that day the Lord will uwhistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19 And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and vin the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.16
20 In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River17—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.
21 In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, 22 and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey.
23 In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels18 of silver, will become briers and thorns. 24 With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. 25 And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.
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