1 Listen to me, pursuers of righteousness; seekers of the LORD: Look to the rock [from which] you were cut, and to the hole of the pit [from which] you were dug.

2 Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah [who] bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.

3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness shall be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

4 Listen to Me, My people; and give ear to Me, O My nation; for a law shall go out from Me, and I will make My judgment to rest for a light of peoples.

5 My righteousness [is] near; My salvation has gone out, and My arms shall judge peoples; the coastlands shall wait on Me, and on My arm they shall trust.

6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall become old like a garment; and its inhabitants shall die in the same way. But My salvation shall be forever, and My righteousness shall not be broken.

7 Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart [is] My law; do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their revelings.

8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation from generation to generation.

9 Awake! awake! Put on strength, O arm of the LORD. Awake! as in the days of old, in the generations of old. Was it not You [who] cut Rahab into pieces, piercing the sea-monster?

10 Was it not You [who] dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?

11 Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return and come with singing into Zion; and everlasting joy [shall be] on their head. Gladness and joy shall overtake [them]; sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

12 I, I, [am] He who comforts you. Who [are] you, that you should fear a man. He shall die, or from the son of man? He shall be made [as] grass?

13 And you forget Jehovah your Maker, who has stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. And you dread continually, every day, because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy. And where [is] the fury of the oppressor?

14 Bowed he hurries to be freed, and not [that] he should die in the pit, nor that he [lack] his bread.

15 But I [am] Jehovah your God, who divided the sea, and its waves roared; Jehovah of hosts [is] His name.

16 And I have put My words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of My hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, You [are] My people.

17 Awake! Awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, who drank the cup of His fury from the hand of the LORD; you have drunk the cup of reeling to the dregs, [and] wrung [them] out.

18 No guide [is] for her among all the sons she has borne; and none takes her by the hand of all the sons [that] she made to grow.

19 These two [things] have come to you, who shall be sorry for you? Desolation, and ruin, and the famine, and the sword. By whom shall I comfort you?

20 Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the street like a wild antelope [in] a net, filled with the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

21 So now hear this, afflicted one, and drunken, but not with wine.

22 So says your Lord Jehovah, and your God [who] strives [for] His people, Behold, I have taken the cup of reeling from your hand, even the dregs of the cup of My fury; you shall never drink it again.

23 But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, Bow down so that we may cross; and put your back as the ground, even as the street to those who cross.