Comfort For God's People

1Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God.

2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.

3The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth:

5And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.

6The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is as the flower of the field:

7The grass withers, the flower fades: because the breath of the LORD blows upon it: surely the people are grass.

8The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand forever.

9O Zion, that brings good tidings, get you up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that brings good tidings, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

10Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.

11He 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.

12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and measured out heaven with the span, and known 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 the LORD, or being his counselor has taught him?

14With whom took he 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?

15Behold, 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 as fine dust.

16And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

17All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and worthless.

18To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him?

19The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains.

20He that is so impoverished that he has no offering chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a skillful workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not move.

21Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22It 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:

23That brings the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as nothing.

24Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

25To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One.

26Lift 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 by the greatness of his might, for he is strong in power; not one is missing.

27Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is passed over by my God?

28Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

29He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength.

30Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

31But 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; and they shall walk, and not faint.