1 Be silent before me, coastlands, and let the peoples gather fresh strength; let them come near, then let them speak; together let us approach for judgment.
2 Who has roused one from the east and called him in righteousness to follow at his feet? He hands over nations to him and makes him tread down kings; his sword turns them to dust, his bow to wind-blown chaff.
3 He chases them and moves on unharmed, along a road his feet have never trodden.
4 Who has worked and accomplished this, summoning the generations from the start? I, the LORD, am the first, and with the last ones I am he.
5 The coastlands saw it and took fright; the ends of the earth are trembling; they have come near and arrived.
6 They help one another, and each says to his brother, "Courage!"
7 The craftsman cheers on the smith, the one who smooths with the hammer cheers on the one who pounds the anvil, saying of the soldering, "It is good," and he fixes it firm with nails so that it will not wobble.
8 But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham my friend,
9 you whom I grasped from the ends of the earth and summoned from its remotest parts, and to whom I said, "You are my servant; I chose you and have not rejected you":
10 have no fear, for I am with you; do not look around in alarm, for I am your God. I make you strong, yes, I help you, yes, I hold you up with my righteous right hand.
11 See, all who rage against you will be shamed and humiliated; those who quarrel with you will become as nothing and perish.
12 You will look for the men who quarrel with you and not find them; the men who make war on you will be as nothing, as nothing at all.
13 For I am the LORD your God, who grasps your right hand, who says to you, "Have no fear; I myself will help you."
14 Have no fear, worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I myself will help you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15 See, I am making you into a threshing sledge, sharp and new, with many teeth; you will thresh mountains and pulverize them, and turn hills into chaff.
16 You will winnow them, the wind will carry them off, and the gale will scatter them; but you will rejoice in the LORD, you will boast in the Holy One of Israel.
17 The poor and the needy look for water and there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not abandon them.
18 I will open up rivers on the bare hills, and springs in the middle of the valleys; I will turn the wilderness into a pool of water, and dry land into flowing springs.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle and the olive; I will set in the desert the cypress, the elm and the box tree side by side,
20 so that people may see and know, may take note and comprehend together, that the LORD's hand has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21 Bring in your case, says the LORD; put forward your arguments, says the King of Jacob.
22 Let them bring them in and tell us what is going to happen. The earlier things, what were they? Tell us, so that we may take them to heart and know how they turned out; or announce to us the things to come.
23 Tell us what is coming later on, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do something good or do harm, so that we may stare in alarm and see it together.
24 See, you are less than nothing, and what you do is worth nothing; whoever chooses you is an abomination.
25 I roused one from the north, and he has come, from the sunrise, one who will call on my name; he will come upon rulers as if they were mud, as a potter tramples clay.
26 Who announced it from the beginning, so that we could know, or long before, so that we could say, "He is right"? No one announced it, no one made it heard, no one heard a word from you.
27 I was first to tell Zion, "Look, here they are!" and to Jerusalem I give a bearer of good news.
28 But when I look, there is no one; among them there is no counselor who could give an answer when I question them.
29 See, they are all a sham; their deeds amount to nothing; their cast images are wind and empty air.