The Servant of the Lord

1Listen to me, you islands;

hear this, you distant nations:

Before I was born the Lord called me;

from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.

2He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,

in the shadow of his hand he hid me;

he made me into a polished arrow

and concealed me in his quiver.

3He said to me, “You are my servant,

Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”

4But I said, “I have labored in vain;

I have spent my strength for nothing at all.

Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,

and my reward is with my God.”

5And now the Lord says—

he who formed me in the womb to be his servant

to bring Jacob back to him

and gather Israel to himself,

for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord

and my God has been my strength—

6he says:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

7This is what the Lord says—

the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—

to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,

to the servant of rulers:

“Kings will see you and stand up,

princes will see and bow down,

because of the Lord, who is faithful,

the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Restoration of Israel

8This is what the Lord says:

“In the time of my favor I will answer you,

and in the day of salvation I will help you;

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people,

to restore the land

and to reassign its desolate inheritances,

9to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’

and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads

and find pasture on every barren hill.

10They will neither hunger nor thirst,

nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them

and lead them beside springs of water.

11I will turn all my mountains into roads,

and my highways will be raised up.

12See, they will come from afar—

some from the north, some from the west,

some from the region of Aswan.”

13Shout for joy, you heavens;

rejoice, you earth;

burst into song, you mountains!

For the Lord comforts his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

14But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,

the Lord has forgotten me.”

15“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget,

I will not forget you!

16See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me.

17Your children hasten back,

and those who laid you waste depart from you.

18Lift up your eyes and look around;

all your children gather and come to you.

As surely as I live,” declares the Lord,

“you will wear them all as ornaments;

you will put them on, like a bride.

19“Though you were ruined and made desolate

and your land laid waste,

now you will be too small for your people,

and those who devoured you will be far away.

20The children born during your bereavement

will yet say in your hearing,

‘This place is too small for us;

give us more space to live in.’

21Then you will say in your heart,

‘Who bore me these?

I was bereaved and barren;

I was exiled and rejected.

Who brought these up?

I was left all alone,

but these—where have they come from?’ ”

22This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“See, I will beckon to the nations,

I will lift up my banner to the peoples;

they will bring your sons in their arms

and carry your daughters on their hips.

23Kings will be your foster fathers,

and their queens your nursing mothers.

They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;

they will lick the dust at your feet.

Then you will know that I am the Lord;

those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”

24Can plunder be taken from warriors,

or captives be rescued from the fierce?

25But this is what the Lord says:

“Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,

and plunder retrieved from the fierce;

I will contend with those who contend with you,

and your children I will save.

26I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine.

Then all mankind will know

that I, the Lord, am your Savior,

your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

1Praise the Lord.

Praise the name of the Lord;

praise him, you servants of the Lord,

2you who minister in the house of the Lord,

in the courts of the house of our God.

3Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;

sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant.

4For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own,

Israel to be his treasured possession.

5I know that the Lord is great,

that our Lord is greater than all gods.

6The Lord does whatever pleases him,

in the heavens and on the earth,

in the seas and all their depths.

7He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth;

he sends lightning with the rain

and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

8He struck down the firstborn of Egypt,

the firstborn of people and animals.

9He sent his signs and wonders into your midst, Egypt,

against Pharaoh and all his servants.

10He struck down many nations

and killed mighty kings—

11Sihon king of the Amorites,

Og king of Bashan,

and all the kings of Canaan—

12and he gave their land as an inheritance,

an inheritance to his people Israel.

13Your name, Lord, endures forever,

your renown, Lord, through all generations.

14For the Lord will vindicate his people

and have compassion on his servants.

15The idols of the nations are silver and gold,

made by human hands.

16They have mouths, but cannot speak,

eyes, but cannot see.

17They have ears, but cannot hear,

nor is there breath in their mouths.

18Those who make them will be like them,

and so will all who trust in them.

19All you Israelites, praise the Lord;

house of Aaron, praise the Lord;

20house of Levi, praise the Lord;

you who fear him, praise the Lord.

21Praise be to the Lord from Zion,

to him who dwells in Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord.

1Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,

you who lead Joseph like a flock.

You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,

shine forth 2before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.

Awaken your might;

come and save us.

3Restore us, O God;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved.

4How long, Lord God Almighty,

will your anger smolder

against the prayers of your people?

5You have fed them with the bread of tears;

you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.

6You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors,

and our enemies mock us.

7Restore us, God Almighty;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved.

8You transplanted a vine from Egypt;

you drove out the nations and planted it.

9You cleared the ground for it,

and it took root and filled the land.

10The mountains were covered with its shade,

the mighty cedars with its branches.

11Its branches reached as far as the Sea,

its shoots as far as the River.

12Why have you broken down its walls

so that all who pass by pick its grapes?

13Boars from the forest ravage it,

and insects from the fields feed on it.

14Return to us, God Almighty!

Look down from heaven and see!

Watch over this vine,

15the root your right hand has planted,

the sonyou have raised up for yourself.

16Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire;

at your rebuke your people perish.

17Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,

the son of man you have raised up for yourself.

18Then we will not turn away from you;

revive us, and we will call on your name.

19Restore us, LordGod Almighty;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved.

1God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

2Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.

4There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

6Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7The LordAlmighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8Come and see what the Lord has done,

the desolations he has brought on the earth.

9He makes wars cease

to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

he burns the shields with fire.

10He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

11The LordAlmighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Jerusalem’s Deliverance Foretold

1When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord. 2He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the moment of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. 4It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”

5When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah, 6Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7Listen! When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’ ”

8When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

9Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush,was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: 10“Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ 11Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? 12Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Harran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

14Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lordand spread it out before the Lord. 15And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.

17“It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. 18They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. 19Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”

Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib’s Fall

20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. 21This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:

“ ‘Virgin Daughter Zion

despises you and mocks you.

Daughter Jerusalem

tosses her head as you flee.

22Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?

Against whom have you raised your voice

and lifted your eyes in pride?

Against the Holy One of Israel!

23By your messengers

you have ridiculed the Lord.

And you have said,

“With my many chariots

I have ascended the heights of the mountains,

the utmost heights of Lebanon.

I have cut down its tallest cedars,

the choicest of its junipers.

I have reached its remotest parts,

the finest of its forests.

24I have dug wells in foreign lands

and drunk the water there.

With the soles of my feet

I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

25“ ‘Have you not heard?

Long ago I ordained it.

In days of old I planned it;

now I have brought it to pass,

that you have turned fortified cities

into piles of stone.

26Their people, drained of power,

are dismayed and put to shame.

They are like plants in the field,

like tender green shoots,

like grass sprouting on the roof,

scorched before it grows up.

27“ ‘But I know where you are

and when you come and go

and how you rage against me.

28Because you rage against me

and because your insolence has reached my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth,

and I will make you return

by the way you came.’

29“This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah:

“This year you will eat what grows by itself,

and the second year what springs from that.

But in the third year sow and reap,

plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

30Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah

will take root below and bear fruit above.

31For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,

and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.

“The zeal of the LordAlmighty will accomplish this.

32“Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:

“ ‘He will not enter this city

or shoot an arrow here.

He will not come before it with shield

or build a siege ramp against it.

33By the way that he came he will return;

he will not enter this city,

declares the Lord.

34I will defend this city and save it,

for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.’ ”

35That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 36So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

37One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.

9In King Hezekiah’s fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. 10At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel. 11The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes. 12This happened because they had not obeyed the Lord their God, but had violated his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.

13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 14So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.” The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

16At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

17The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field. 18They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.

19The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah:

“ ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? 20You say you have the counsel and the might for war—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? 21Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. 22But if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?

23“ ‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! 24How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 25Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’ ”

26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

27But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the people sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”

28Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! 29This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. 30Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

31“Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, 32until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death!

“Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ 33Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? 35Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

36But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.

Stubborn Israel

1“Listen to this, you descendants of Jacob,

you who are called by the name of Israel

and come from the line of Judah,

you who take oaths in the name of the Lord

and invoke the God of Israel—

but not in truth or righteousness—

2you who call yourselves citizens of the holy city

and claim to rely on the God of Israel—

the LordAlmighty is his name:

3I foretold the former things long ago,

my mouth announced them and I made them known;

then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

4For I knew how stubborn you were;

your neck muscles were iron,

your forehead was bronze.

5Therefore I told you these things long ago;

before they happened I announced them to you

so that you could not say,

‘My images brought them about;

my wooden image and metal god ordained them.’

6You have heard these things; look at them all.

Will you not admit them?

“From now on I will tell you of new things,

of hidden things unknown to you.

7They are created now, and not long ago;

you have not heard of them before today.

So you cannot say,

‘Yes, I knew of them.’

8You have neither heard nor understood;

from of old your ears have not been open.

Well do I know how treacherous you are;

you were called a rebel from birth.

9For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath;

for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you,

so as not to destroy you completely.

10See, I have refined you, though not as silver;

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

11For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.

How can I let myself be defamed?

I will not yield my glory to another.

Israel Freed

12“Listen to me, Jacob,

Israel, whom I have called:

I am he;

I am the first and I am the last.

13My own hand laid the foundations of the earth,

and my right hand spread out the heavens;

when I summon them,

they all stand up together.

14“Come together, all of you, and listen:

Which of the idols has foretold these things?

The Lord’s chosen ally

will carry out his purpose against Babylon;

his arm will be against the Babylonians.

15I, even I, have spoken;

yes, I have called him.

I will bring him,

and he will succeed in his mission.

16“Come near me and listen to this:

“From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret;

at the time it happens, I am there.”

And now the Sovereign Lord has sent me,

endowed with his Spirit.

17This is what the Lord says—

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you what is best for you,

who directs you in the way you should go.

18If only you had paid attention to my commands,

your peace would have been like a river,

your well-being like the waves of the sea.

19Your descendants would have been like the sand,

your children like its numberless grains;

their name would never be blotted out

nor destroyed from before me.”

20Leave Babylon,

flee from the Babylonians!

Announce this with shouts of joy

and proclaim it.

Send it out to the ends of the earth;

say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”

21They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;

he made water flow for them from the rock;

he split the rock

and water gushed out.

22“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”