Comfort my people, comfort them, says your God.

Speak comfortably to Yerushalayim, and cry to her, that her war service is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries, Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

A voice says, Cry, and he said what should I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its grace is as the flower of the field:

the grass withers, the flower fades: when the breath of the Lord blows upon it: surely the people is like grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Thou that bringest good tidings to Żiyyon, get thee up into the high mountain; Thou that bringest good tidings to Yerushalayim, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Yehuda, Behold your God!

Behold, the Lord God will come with might, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his hire before him,

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

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?

Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor has taught him?

With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust.

And Levanon is not sufficient for fuel; nor are its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare to him?

As for the image, a craftsman casts it, and a refiner plates it with gold, he forges silver chains.

He that is too impoverished for such a gift, chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks to him a cunning workman to prepare a carved idol, that shall not be moved.

Do you not know? do you not hear? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in:

that brings princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity.

Scarcely are they planted; scarcely are they sown; scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth: he merely blows upon them and they wither; and the storm wind takes them away as stubble.

To whom then will you liken me, that I should be his equal, says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names; because of the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

Why sayst thou, O Ya῾aqov, and speakest, O Yisra᾽el, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, nor is he weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

He gives power to the faint; and to the power­less he increases strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

but they that wait upon the Lord 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.