Isaiah 41 - Revised Standard Version(RSV)

1Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;

let the peoples renew their strength;

let them approach, then let them speak;

let us together draw near for judgment.

2Who stirred up one from the east

whom victory meets at every step?

He gives up nations before him,

so that he tramples kings under foot;

he makes them like dust with his sword,

like driven stubble with his bow.

3He pursues them and passes on safely,

by paths his feet have not trod.

4Who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord, the first,

and with the last; I am He.

5The coastlands have seen and are afraid,

the ends of the earth tremble;

they have drawn near and come.

6Every one helps his neighbor,

and says to his brother, “Take courage!”

7The craftsman encourages the goldsmith,

and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil,

saying of the soldering, “It is good”;

and they fasten it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

8 on rulers as on mortar,

as the potter treads clay.

26Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know,

and beforetime, that we might say, “He is right”?

There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,

none who heard your words.

27I first have declared it to Zion,

and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good tidings.

28But when I look there is no one;

among these there is no counselor

who, when I ask, gives an answer.

29Behold, they are all a delusion;

their works are nothing;

their molten images are empty wind.