Bible Gateway passage: Isaiah 40 - English Standard Version (2024)

Comfort for God's People

40^(A)Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
^2(B)Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that ^(C)her warfare^[a] is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.

^3(D)A voice cries:^[b]
(E)“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
^(F)make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
^4(G)Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
^5(H)And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
^(I)for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Word of God Stands Forever

⁶A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said,^[c] “What shall I cry?”
^(J)All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty^[d] is like the flower of the field.
⁷The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
^8(K)The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.

The Greatness of God

⁹Go on up to a high mountain,
O Zion, ^(L)herald of good news;^[e]
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news;^[f]
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”
^10(M)Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
^(N)behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
^11(O)He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
^(P)he will gather the lambs in his arms;
^(Q)he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.

^12(R)Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
^13(S)Who has measured^[g] the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?
¹⁴Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
^(T)Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted ^(U)as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up ^(V)the coastlands like fine dust.
¹⁶Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are ^(W)its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
^17(X)All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

^18(Y)To whom then will you liken God,
^(Z)or what likeness compare with him?
^19(AA)An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
^20(AB)He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood^[h] that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.

^21(AC)Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²²It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are ^(AD)like grasshoppers;
^(AE)who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
^23(AF)who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
^(AG)and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

^25(AH)To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
^(AI)He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might
and because he is strong in power,
not one is missing.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
^(AJ)“My way is hidden from the Lord,
^(AK)and my right is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is ^(AL)the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
^(AM)his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
³⁰Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
³¹but ^(AN)they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings ^(AO)like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.