Isaiah 42

¹ Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have sent my spiritupon him, he will bring fair judgement to the nations.

² He does not cry out or raise his voice, his voice is not heard in the street;

³ he does not break the crushed reed or snuff the faltering wick. Faithful y he presents fair judgement;

⁴ he wil not grow faint, he wil not be crushed until he has established fair judgement on earth, and thecoasts and islands are waiting for his instruction.

⁵ Thus says God, Yahweh, who created the heavens and spread them out, who hammered into shapethe earth and what comes from it, who gave breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it:

⁶ I, Yahweh, have called you in saving justice, I have grasped you by the hand and shaped you; I havemade you a covenant of the people and light to the nations,

⁷ to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those who live in darkness from thedungeon.

⁸ I am Yahweh, that is my name! I shal not yield my glory to another, nor my honour to idols.

⁹ See how the former predictions have come true. Fresh things I now reveal; before they appear I tel youof them.

¹⁰ Sing a new song to Yahweh! Let his praise be sung from remotest parts of the earth by those who sailthe sea and by everything in it, by the coasts and islands and those who inhabit them.

¹¹ Let the desert and its cities raise their voices, the encampments where Kedar lives. Let the inhabitantsof the Rock cry aloud for joy and shout from the mountain tops.

¹² Let them give glory to Yahweh and, in the coasts and islands, let them voice his praise.

¹³ Yahweh advances like a hero, like a warrior he rouses his fire. He shouts, he raises the war cry, heshows his might against his foes.

¹⁴ 'From long ago I have been silent, I have kept quiet, held myself in check, groaning like a woman inlabour, panting and gasping for air.

¹⁵ I shal ravage mountain and hil , shal wither al their vegetation; I shal turn the torrents into firmground and dry up the marshes.

¹⁶ I shal lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they do not know I shal conduct them. Ishall turn the darkness into light before them and the quagmires into solid ground. This I shal do -- without fail.'

¹⁷ Those who trust in idols will recoil, they will blush for shame, who say to metal images, 'You are ourgods.'

¹⁸ Listen, you deaf! Look and see, you blind!

¹⁹ Who so blind as my servant, so deaf as the messenger I send? (Who so blind as the friend I havetaken to myself, so deaf as Yahweh's servant?)

²⁰ You have seen many things but not observed them; your ears are open but you do not hear.

²¹ Yahweh wished, because of his saving justice, to make the Law great and glorious.

²² Yet here is a people pil aged and plundered, all of them shut up in caves, imprisoned in dungeons.They have been pil aged, with no one to rescue them, plundered, with no one to say, 'Give it back!'

²³ Which of you wil listen to this, who pay attention and listen in future?

²⁴ Who surrendered Jacob to the plunderer and Israel to the pil agers? Was it not Yahweh, againstwhom we had sinned, in whose ways they would not walk and whose Law they would not obey?

²⁵ On him he poured out his blazing anger and the fury of war; it enveloped him in flames and yet he didnot understand; it burned him up, but he did not learn a lesson.