Dual Panel1Listen in silence to me, all you coasts and islands; let the peoples come to meet me. Let them draw near, then let them speak up; together we shall go to the place of judgement.
2Who has raised up from the east one greeted by victory wherever he goes, making nations his subjects and overthrowing their kings? He scatters them with his sword like dust and with his bow like chaff driven before the wind;
3he puts them to flight and passes on unscathed, swifter than any traveller on foot.
4Whose work is this, who has brought it to pass? Who has summoned the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, was with the first of them, and I am with those who come after.
5Coasts and islands saw it and were afraid, the world trembled from end to end.
6(40:20)
7(40:20)
8But you, Israel my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, descendants of my friend Abraham,
9I have taken you from the ends of the earth, and summoned you from its farthest corners; I have called you my servant, have chosen you and not rejected you:
10have no fear, for I am with you; be not afraid, for I am your God. I shall strengthen you and give you help and uphold you with my victorious right hand.
11Now all who defy you will be confounded and put to shame; all who set themselves against you will be as nothing and will vanish.
12You will look for your assailants but you will not find them; those who take up arms against you will be reduced to nothing.
13For I, the LORD your God, take you by the right hand and say to you, Have no fear; it is I who help you.
14Have no fear, Jacob you worm and Israel you maggot. It is I who help you, declares the LORD; your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15See, I shall make of you a sharp threshing-sledge, new and studded with teeth; you will thresh mountains and crush them to dust and reduce the hills to chaff;
16you will winnow them; the wind will carry them away and a gale will scatter them. Then you will rejoice in the LORD and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17The poor and the needy look for water and find none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD shall provide for their wants; I, the God of Israel, shall not forsake them.
18I shall open rivers on the arid heights, and wells in the valleys; I shall turn the desert into pools and dry land into springs of water;
19I shall plant cedars in the wilderness, acacias, myrtles, and wild olives; I shall grow pines on the barren heath side by side with fir and box tree,
20that everyone may see and know, may once for all observe and understand that the LORD himself has done this: it is the creation of the Holy One of Israel.
21Come, open your plea, says the LORD, present your case, says Jacob's King;
22let these idols come forward and foretell the future for us. Let them declare the meaning of these past events that we may reflect on it; let them predict the future to us that we may know what it holds.
23Declare what is yet to happen; then we shall know you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, anything that will strike us with dismay and fear.
24You cannot! You are sprung from nothing, your works are non-existent. To choose you is outrageous!
25I roused one from the north, and he has come; I called from the east one summoned in my name; he marches over rulers as if they were mud, like a potter treading clay.
26Who has declared this from the beginning, that we might know it, or told us beforehand so that we might say, “He was right”? Not one of you declared, not one foretold, no one heard a sound from you.
27I am the first to appoint a messenger to Zion, a bringer of good news to Jerusalem.
28When I look round there is no one, and among those gods no one to give counsel; I ask a question and no one can answer.
29What empty things they all are! Nothing they do amounts to anything, their effigies are so much wind, mere nothings.