Isaie 40

¹Be comforted, be comforted my people, saith your God.

²Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: because her malice is accomplished, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of our Lord double for all her sins.

³The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of our Lord, make straight the paths of our God in the wilderness.

⁴Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and little hill shall be humbled, and crooked things shall become straight, and rough ways, plain.

⁵And the glory of our Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, the mouth of our Lord hath spoken.

⁶The voice of one saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.

⁷The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen, because the spirit of our Lord hath blown on it. Indeed the people is grass:

⁸the grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord abideth for ever.

⁹Upon an high mountain get thee up, thou that evangelizest to Sion: exalt the voice in strength, which evangelizest to Jerusalem: exalt it, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God:

¹⁰behold our Lord God shall come in strength, & his arm shall have dominion: behold his reward is with him, and his work before him.

¹¹As a shepherd shall he feed his flock: in his arm shall he gather together the lambs, and in his bosom shall he lift them up, and them with young himself shall carry.

¹²Who hath measured the waters with his fist, and pondered the heavens with a span? Who hath poised with three fingers the huge greatness of the earth, & weighed the mountains in weight, and the little hills in balance?

¹³Who hath holpen the spirit of our Lord? Or who hath been his counseller, & shewed to him?

¹⁴With whom hath he taken counsel, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of prudence?

¹⁵Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are reputed as the moment of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust.

¹⁶And Libanus shall not suffice to kindle the fire, and the beasts thereof shall not be sufficient for holocaust.

¹⁷All nations as if they were not, so are they before him, and they are reputed of him as nothing, and a vain thing.

¹⁸To whom then have you made God like? Or what image will you set to him?

¹⁹Hath the artificer cast a sculptile? or hath the goldsmith figured it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?

²⁰Strong wood, and that which will not putrefy hath he chosen: the wise artificer seeketh how he may set up a sculptile which may not be moved.

²¹Why, do you not know: why, have you not heard? Why, hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth?

²²He that sitteth upon the compass of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in.

²³He that maketh the searchers of secrets as if they were not, that hath made the judges of the earth as a vain thing:

²⁴and indeed their stock was neither planted, nor sown, nor rooted in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they have withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

²⁵And to whom have ye likened me, and made me equal? Saith the holy one.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things: he that bringeth out the host of them in number, and calleth them all by name: by the multitude of his force and strength, & power, not one of them was missing.

²⁷Why sayest thou Jacob, and speakest thou Israel: My way is hid from our Lord, and my judgement is passed over of my God?

²⁸Why knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? Our Lord is God everlasting, which hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not fail, nor labour, neither is there searching out of his wisdom.

²⁹Which giveth strength to the weary: and to them that are not, multiplieth force and strength.

³⁰Children shall faint, and labour, and youngmen shall fall by infirmity.

³¹But they that hope in our Lord shall change their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not labour, they shall walk and not faint.