1Keep silence before me, O islands, and let the people renew their strength: let them come near, and let them speak: let us come together into judgment.
2Who raised up justice from the East, and called him to his foot? and gave the nations before him, and subdued the kings? he gave them as dust to his sword, and as scattered stubble unto his bow.
3He pursued them, and passed safely by the way that he had not gone with his feet.
4Who hath wrought and done it? he that calleth the generations from the beginning. I the Lord am the first, and with the last I am the same.
5The isles saw it, and did fear, and the ends of the earth were abashed, drew near, and came.
6Every man helped his neighbor, and said to his brother, Be strong.
7So the workman comforted the founder, and he that smote with the hammer, him that smote by course, saying, It is ready for the soldering, and he fastened it with nails that it should not be moved.
8But thou, Israel, art my servant, and thou Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
9For I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and called thee before the chief thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant: I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.
10Fear thou not, for I am with thee: be not afraid, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee, and help thee, and will sustain thee with the right hand of my justice.
11Behold, all they that provoke thee, shall be ashamed, and confounded: they shall be as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish.
12Thou shalt seek them and shalt not find them: to wit, the men of thy strife, for they shall be as nothing, and the men that war against thee, as a thing of nought.
13For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee.
14Fear not thou worm, Jacob, and ye men of Israel: I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer the holy One of Israel.
15Behold, I will make thee a roller, and a new threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and bring them to powder, and shalt make the hills as chaff.
16Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the holy One of Israel.
17When the poor and the needy seek water, and there is none (their tongue faileth for thirst: I the Lord will hear them: I the God of Israel will not forsake them:)
18I will open rivers in the tops of the hills, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness as a pool of water, and the waste land as springs of water.
19I will set in the wilderness the cedar, the Shittah, and the myrrhe tree, and the pine tree, and I will set in the wilderness the fir tree, the elm and the box tree together.
20Therefore let them see and know, and let them consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the holy One of Israel hath created it.
21Stand to your cause, saith the Lord: bring forth your strong reasons saith the King of Jacob.
22Let them bring them forth, and let them tell us what shall come, let them show the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them: either declare us things for to come.
23Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good or do evil, that we may declare it, and behold it together.
24Behold, ye are of no value, and your making is of naught: man hath chosen an abomination by them.
25I have raised up from the North, and he shall come: from the East sun shall he call upon my name, and shall come upon princes as upon clay, and as the potter treadeth mire under the foot.
26Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? or before time, that we may say, He is righteous? Surely there is none that showeth: surely there is none that declareth: surely there is none that heareth your words.
27I am the first, that saith to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that shall bring good tidings.
28But when I beheld, there was none: and when I inquired of them, there was no counselor, and when I demanded of them, they answered not a word.
29Behold, they are all vanity: their work is of nothing, their images are wind and confusion.