Here Is My Servant

¹“Here is My Servant, whom I uphold,My Chosen One, in whom My soul delights.I will put My Spirit on Him,and He will bring justice to the nations.

²He will not cry out or raise His voice,nor make His voice heard in the streets.

³A bruised reed He will not breakand a smoldering wick He will not extinguish;He will faithfully bring forth justice.

⁴He will not grow weak or discouragedbefore He has established justice on the earth.In His law the islands will put their hope.”

⁵This is what God the LORD says—He who created the heavensand stretched them out,who spread out the earth and its offspring,who gives breath to the people on itand life to those who walk in it:

⁶“I, the LORD, have called youfor a righteous purpose,and I will take hold of your hand.I will keep you and appoint youto be a covenant for the peopleand a light to the nations,

⁷to open the eyes of the blind,to bring prisoners out of the dungeonand those sitting in darknessout from the prison house.

⁸I am the LORD;that is My name!I will not yield My glory to anotheror My praise to idols.

⁹Behold, the former things have happened,and now I declare new things.Before they spring forthI proclaim them to you.”

A New Song of Praise

¹⁰Sing to the LORD a new song—His praise from the ends of the earth—you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,you islands,and all who dwell in them.

¹¹Let the desert and its cities raise their voices;let the villages of Kedar cry aloud.Let the people of Sela sing for joy;let them cry out from the mountaintops.

¹²Let them give glory to the LORDand declare His praise in the islands.

¹³The LORD goes forth like a mighty one;He stirs up His zeal like a warrior.He shouts; yes, He roarsin triumph over His enemies:

¹⁴“I have kept silent from ages past;I have remained quiet and restrained.But now I will groan like a woman in labor;I will at once gasp and pant.

¹⁵I will lay waste the mountains and hillsand dry up all their vegetation.I will turn the rivers into dry landand drain the marshes.

¹⁶I will lead the blind by a way they did not know;I will guide them on unfamiliar paths.I will turn darkness into light before themand rough places into level ground.These things I will do for them,and I will not forsake them.

¹⁷But those who trust in idolsand say to molten images, ‘You are our gods!’will be turned back in utter shame.

Israel Is Deaf and Blind

¹⁸Listen, you deaf ones;look, you blind ones, that you may see!

¹⁹Who is blind but My servant,or deaf like the messenger I am sending?Who is blind like My covenant partner,or blind like the servant of the LORD?

²⁰Though seeing many things, you do not keep watch.Though your ears are open, you do not hear.”

²¹The LORD was pleased, for the sake of His righteousness,to magnify His law and make it glorious.

²²But this is a people plundered and looted,all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons.They have become plunder with no one to rescue them,and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”

²³Who among you will pay attention to this?Who will listen and obey hereafter?

²⁴Who gave Jacob up for spoil,and Israel to the plunderers?Was it not the LORD,against whom we have sinned?They were unwilling to walk in His ways,and they would not obey His law.

²⁵So He poured out on them His furious angerand the fierceness of battle.It enveloped them in flames,but they did not understand;it consumed them,but they did not take it to heart.

I Will Send My Messenger

¹“Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me.Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple—the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight—see, He is coming,” says the LORD of Hosts.

²But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.

³And He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

⁴Then the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please the LORD, as in days of old and years gone by.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the LORD of Hosts.

Robbing God

⁶“Because I, the LORD, do not change, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.

⁷Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts.“But you ask, ‘How can we return?’

⁸Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me!But you ask, ‘How do we rob You?’In tithes and offerings.

⁹You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me.

¹⁰Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.

¹¹I will rebuke the devourerfor you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your land, and the vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹²“Then all the nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight,” says the LORD of Hosts.

The Book of Remembrance

¹³“Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’

¹⁴You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Hosts?

¹⁵So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”

¹⁶At that time those who feared the LORD spoke with one another, and the LORD listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the LORD and honored His name.

¹⁷“They will be Mine,” says the LORD of Hosts, “on the day when I prepare My treasured possession. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.

¹⁸So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

The LORD Judges the Nations

¹“Yes, in those days and at that time,when I restore Judah and Jerusalem from captivity,

²I will gather all the nationsand bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.There I will enter into judgment against themconcerning My people, My inheritance, Israel,whom they have scattered among the nationsas they divided up My land.

³They cast lots for My people;they bartered a boy for a prostituteand sold a girl for wine to drink.

⁴Now what do you have against Me, O Tyre, Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you rendering against Me a recompense? If you retaliate against Me, I will swiftly and speedily return your recompense upon your heads.

⁵For you took My silver and gold and carried off My finest treasures to your temples.

⁶You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks,to send them far from their homeland.

⁷Behold, I will rouse them from the places to which you sold them; I will return your recompense upon your heads.

⁸I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans—to a distant nation.”Indeed, the LORD has spoken.

⁹Proclaim this among the nations:“Prepare for war;rouse the mighty men;let all the men of waradvance and attack!

¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swordsand your pruning hooks into spears.Let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’

¹¹Come quickly, all you surrounding nations,and gather yourselves.Bring down Your mighty ones,O LORD.

¹²Let the nations be rousedand advance to the Valley of Jehoshaphat,for there I will sit downto judge all the nations on every side.

¹³Swing the sickle,for the harvest is ripe.Come, trample the grapes,for the winepress is full;the wine vats overflowbecause their wickedness is great.

¹⁴Multitudes, multitudesin the valley of decision!For the Day of the LORD is nearin the valley of decision.

¹⁵The sun and moon will grow dark,and the stars will no longer shine.

¹⁶The LORD will roar from Zionand raise His voice from Jerusalem;heaven and earth will tremble.But the LORD will be a refuge for His people,a stronghold for the people of Israel.

Blessings for God’s People

¹⁷Then you will know that I am the LORD your God,who dwells in Zion, My holy mountain.Jerusalem will be holy,never again to be overrun by foreigners.

¹⁸And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine,and the hills will flow with milk.All the streams of Judah will run with water,and a spring will flow from the house of the LORDto water the Valley of Acacias.

¹⁹Egypt will become desolate,and Edom a desert wasteland,because of the violence done to the people of Judah,in whose land they shed innocent blood.

²⁰But Judah will be inhabited forever,and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

²¹For I will avenge their blood,which I have not yet avenged.”For the LORD dwells in Zion.

Sing to the LORD, All the Earth

¹Sing to the LORD a new song;sing to the LORD, all the earth.

²Sing to the LORD, bless His name;proclaim His salvation day after day.

³Declare His glory among the nations,His wonders among all peoples.

⁴For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;He is to be feared above all gods.

⁵For all the gods of the nations are idols,but it is the LORD who made the heavens.

⁶Splendor and majesty are before Him;strength and beauty fill His sanctuary.

⁷Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the nations,ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

⁸Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name;bring an offering and enter His courts.

⁹Worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness;tremble before Him, all the earth.

¹⁰Declare among the nations: “The LORD reigns!”The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved;He will judge the peoples with equity.

¹¹Let the heavens be gladand the earth rejoice;let the sea resound,and all that fills it.

¹²Let the fields exult,and all that is in them.Then all the trees of the forestwill sing for joy

¹³before the LORD,for He is coming—He is coming to judge the earth.He will judge the world in righteousnessand the peoples in His faithfulness.