Isaiah 42

¹ Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have endowed him with my spirit that he may bring true justice to the nations.

² He does not cry out or shout aloud, or make his voice heard in the streets.

³ He does not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame. Faithfully he brings true justice;

⁴ he will neither waver, nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth, for the islands are awaiting his law.

⁵ Thus says God, Yahweh, he who created the heavens and spread them out, who gave shape to the earth and what comes from it, who gave breath to its people and life to the creatures that move in it:

⁶ I, Yahweh, have called you to serve the cause of right; I have taken you by the hand and formed you; I have appointed you as covenant of the people and light of the nations,

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

⁸ My name is Yahweh, I will not yield my glory to another, nor my honour to idols.

⁹ See how former predictions have come true. Fresh things I now foretell; before they appear I tell you of them.

¹⁰ Sing a new hymn to Yahweh! Let his praise resound from the ends of the earth, let the sea and all that it holds sing his praises, the islands and those who inhabit them.

¹¹ Let the desert and its cities raise their voice, the camp where Kedar lives. Let the inhabitants of Sela cry aloud and shout from the mountain tops.

¹² Let them give glory to Yahweh and let the people of the islands voice his praise.

¹³ Yahweh advances like a hero, his fury is stirred like a warrior’s. He gives the war shout, raises the hue and cry, marches valiantly against his foes.

¹⁴ ‘From the beginning I have been silent, I have kept quiet, held myself in check. I groan like a woman in labour, I suffocate, I stifle.

¹⁵ ‘I will turn mountain and hill to desert, wither all their greenery, turn rivers to pools and dry up lakes.

¹⁶ ‘But I will make the blind walk along the road and lead them along paths. I will turn darkness into light before them and rocky places into level tracks. These things I will do, and not leave them undone.’

¹⁷ All who trust in idols shall withdraw in shame, all those who say to images of cast metal, ‘You are our gods’.

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 my envoy, so deaf as the servant of Yahweh?)

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

²¹ It is Yahweh’s will, for the sake of his integrity, to make his Law great and glorious.

²² But this is a people all pillaged and plundered, trapped in caves, hidden in dungeons. They are looted, with no one to rescue them, robbed, with no one to say, ‘Give it back!’

²³ Which of you listening to this, will pay attention and mark it, against the time to come?

²⁴ Who handed Jacob over to the robber, Israel to the pillagers? Was it not Yahweh? We had sinned against him, we had refused to follow his ways or obey his Law.

²⁵ On him he poured out the blaze of his anger and the furies of war. It enveloped him in flames and he did not notice, it burned him up, and he gave it no thought.