Chapter 51

  Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look to the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.  

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  Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.  

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  For the LORD will comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.  

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  Hearken to me, my people; and give ear to me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.  

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  My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and my arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on my arm shall they trust.  

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  Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall become old like a garment, and its inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.  

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  Hearken to me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.  

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  For the moth shall eat them like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.  

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  Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not that which hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?  

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  Art thou not that which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?  

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  Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and mourning shall flee away.  

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  I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made as grass;  

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  And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?  

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  The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.  

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  But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.  

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  And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shade of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, Thou art my people.  

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  Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drank at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drank the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.  

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  There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.  

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  These two things have come to thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?  

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  Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.  

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  Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:  

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  Thus saith thy Lord Jehovah, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:  

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  But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; who have said to thy soul, Prostrate thyself, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.  

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