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¹ Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.² Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry to her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh's hand double for all her sins.

³ The voice of one that cries, Prepare in the wilderness the way of Yahweh; make level in the desert a highway for our God.⁴ Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain:⁵ and the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.⁶ The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of Yahweh blows on it; surely the people is grass.⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever.

⁹ O you that tell good tidings to Zion, get yourself up on a high mountain; O you that tell good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, don't be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Look, your God!¹⁰ Look, the Lord Yahweh will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him: Look, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.¹¹ He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, [and] will gently lead those that have their young.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh, or being his counselor has taught him?¹⁴ With whom did he take counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?¹⁵ Look, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance: Look, he takes up the isles as a very little thing.¹⁶ And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering.¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity.

¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare to him?¹⁹ The image, a workman has cast [it], and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts [for it] silver chains.²⁰ He that is too impoverished for [such] an oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks to him a skillful workman to set up a graven image, that shall not be moved.²¹ Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told to you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?²² [It is] he that sits above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in;²³ that brings princes to nothing; that makes the judges of the earth as vanity.²⁴ Yes, they have not been planted; yes, they have not been sown; yes, their stock has not taken root in the earth: moreover he blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.²⁵ To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal [to him]? says the Holy One.²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, that brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from Yahweh, and the justice [due] to me has passed away from my God?²⁸ Haven't you known? haven't you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding.²⁹ He gives power to the faint; and to him that has no might he increases strength.³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall completely fall:³¹ but those that wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.