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Isaiah 40:1-31 — Comfort for God's People

Isa.40.1-31

¹“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. ²“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and call out to her, that her hard service is completed, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins.” ³A voice of one calling: "In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken." ⁶A voice says, “Call out!” And he said , “What shall I call out?” "All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. ⁷The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of Yahweh blows upon it; surely the people are grass. ⁸The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." ⁹Go up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” ¹⁰Behold, the Lord Yahweh comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. ¹¹He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom; he will gently lead the nursing ewes. ¹²Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? ¹³Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh, or as his counselor has taught him? ¹⁴With whom did he take counsel, and who gave him understanding, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? ¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. ¹⁶And Lebanon is not enough for fuel, and its wild animals are not enough for a burnt offering. ¹⁷All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. ¹⁸To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him? ¹⁹An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it. ²⁰He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skilled craftsman for himself to set up an idol that will not topple. ²¹Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? ²²It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in; ²³who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. ²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the whirlwind carries them away like stubble. ²⁵“To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal?” says the Holy One. ²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. ²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and my right is disregarded by my God”? ²⁸Have you not known? Have you not heard? Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. ²⁹He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. ³⁰Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall utterly stumble; ³¹but those who wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles ; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

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4/11/2026

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