Esaias

41

1 Hold a feast to me, ye islands: for the princes shall renew their strength: let them draw nigh and speak together: then let them declare judgment.

2 Who raised up righteousness from the east, and called it to his feet, so that it should go? shall appoint it an adversary of Gentiles, and shall dismay kings, and bury their swords in the earth, and cast forth their bows and arrows as sticks?

3 And he shall pursue them; the way of his feet shall proceed in peace.

4 Who has wrought and done these things? he has called it who called it from the generations of old; I God, ✡ the first and to all futurity, I AM.

5 The nations saw, and feared; the ends of the earth drew nigh, and came together,

6 every one judging for his neighbour and that to assist his brother: and one will say,

7 The artificer has become strong, and the coppersmith that smites with the hammer, and forges also: sometimes he will say, It is a piece well joined: they have fastened them with nails; they will fix them, and they shall not be moved.

8 But thou, Israel, art my servant Jacob, and he whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraam, whom I have loved:

9 whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and from the high places of it I have called thee, and said to thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and I have not forsaken thee.

10 Fear not; for I am with thee: wander not; for I am thy God, who have strengthened thee; and I have helped thee, and have established thee with my just right hand.

11 Behold, all thine adversaries shall be ashamed and confounded; for they shall be as if they were not: and all thine opponents shall perish.

12 Thou shalt seek them, and thou shalt not find the men who shall *insolently rage against thee: for they shall be as if they were not, and they that war against thee shall not be.

13 For I am thy God, who holdeth thy right hand, who saith to thee,

14 Fear not, Jacob, and thou Israel few in number; I have helped thee, saith thy God, he that redeems thee, O Israel.

15 Behold, I have made thee as new saw-shaped threshing wheels of a waggon; and thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat the hills to powder, and make them as chaff:

16 and thou shalt winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and a tempest shall scatter them: but thou shalt rejoice in the holy ones of Israel.

17 And the poor and the needy shall exult; for when they shall seek water, and there shall be none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord God, I the God of Israel will hear, and will not forsake them:

18 but I will open rivers on the mountains, and fountains in the midst of plains: I will make the desert pools of water, and a thirsty land watercourses.

19 I will plant in the dry land the cedar and box, the myrtle and cypress, and white poplar:

20 that they may see, and know, and perceive, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has wrought these works, and the Holy One of Israel has displayed them.

21 Your judgment draws nigh, saith the Lord God; your counsels have drawn nigh, saith the King of Jacob.

22 Let them draw nigh, and declare to you what things shall come to pass; or tell us what things were of old, and we will apply our understanding, and we shall know what are the last and the future things:

23 tell us, declare ye to us the things that are coming on at the last time, and we shall know that ye are gods: do good, and do evil, and we shall wonder, and see at the same time

24 whence ye are, and whence is your work: they have chosen you an abomination out of the earth.

25 But I have raised up him that comes from the north, and him that comes from the rising of the sun: they shall be called by my name: let the princes come, and as potter's clay, and as a potter treading clay, so shall ye be trodden down.

26 For who will declare the things from the beginning, that we may know also the former things, †and we will say that they are true? there is no one that speaks beforehand, nor any one that hears your words.

27 I will give dominion to Sion, and will comfort Jerusalem by the way.

28 For from among the nations, behold, there was no one; and of their idols there was none to declare anything: and if I should ask them, Whence are ye? they could not answer me.

29 For these are your makers, as ye think, and they that cause you to err in vain.