Isaiah 40 - New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition 2021(NRSVUE)

Isaiah 40God’s People Are Comforted

1 “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass;

their constancy is like the flower of the field.

7

but the word of our God will stand forever.

9

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

lift it up, do not fear;

say to the cities of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

10 in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

and weighed the mountains in scales

and the hills in a balance?

13

or as his counselor has instructed him?

14Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,

and who taught him the path of justice?

[[Who taught him knowledge

and showed him the way of understanding?

15

17

—wood that will not rot—

then seeks out a skilled artisan

to set up an image that will not topple.

21 Ps 19.1; Acts 14.17; Rom 1.19 Have you not known? Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22 Num 13.33; Job 22.14; Ps 104.2; Isa 42.5; 44.24 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain

and spreads them like a tent to live in,

23 Job 12.21; Ps 107.40; Isa 5.21 who brings princes to naught

and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

24 v 7 ; Isa 17.10, 11, 13; 41.16Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows upon them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25 v 18 To whom, then, will you compare me,

or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

26 Ps 89.11–13; 147.4; Isa 34.16; 42.5; 51.6 Lift up your eyes on high and see:

Who created these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them,

calling them all by name;

because he is great in strength,

mighty in power,

not one is missing.

27 Isa 25.1; 49.4, 14; 54.8; Lk 18.7, 8 Why do you say, O Jacob,

and assert, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord,

and my right is disregarded by my God”?

28 Ps 90.2; 147.5; Rom 11.33 Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

29 Isa 41.10; 50.4; Jer 31.25 He gives power to the faint

and strengthens the powerless.

30Even youths will faint and be weary,

and the young will fall exhausted,

31 Deut 32.11; Ps 103.5; 2 Cor 4.1, 8–10, 16; Heb 12.3 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.