1Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and proclaim to her, that her warfare is fulfilled, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the hand of YHWH double for all her sins.
3A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of YHWH, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
5And the glory of YHWH shall be revealed, and all flesh (basar) shall see it together; for the mouth of YHWH has spoken.
6A voice says: Cry! And he said: What shall I cry? All flesh (basar) is grass, and all its kindness is as the flower of the field.
7The grass withers, the flower fades, because the wind (ruach) of YHWH blows upon it; surely the people is grass.
8The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever.
9Get up onto a high mountain, O herald of good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, O herald of good tidings to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah: Behold your God!
10Behold, my Lord (Adonai) YHWH comes with strength, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
11As a shepherd he feeds his flock, in his arm he gathers the lambs and carries them in his bosom; he gently leads those that are nursing.
12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust (aphar) of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13Who has measured the spirit (ruach) of YHWH, and what man (ish) of his counsel makes him know?
14With whom did he take counsel, that he gave him understanding, and taught him in the path of judgment (mishpat), and taught him knowledge, and made him know the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are reckoned as the dust of the scales; behold, he lifts up the coastlands like fine dust.
16And Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17All the nations are as nothing before him; they are counted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18To whom then will you liken God, and what likeness will you compare to him?
19The idol — a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts chains of silver.
20He who is too poor for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks for himself a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not be moved.
21Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth?
22It is he that sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them as a tent to dwell in;
23that brings princes to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth as emptiness.
24Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, when he also blows upon them and they wither, and the whirlwind carries them away like stubble.
25To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal? says the Holy One.
26Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He that brings out their host by number, he calls them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and being strong in power, not one is missing.
27Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: My way is hidden from YHWH, and my judgment (mishpat) passes away from my God?
28Do you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, YHWH, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint nor is weary; there is no searching of his understanding.
29He gives power to the faint, and to him that has no might he increases strength.
30Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall utterly fall;
31but those who wait for YHWH shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.