THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

 

Isaiah Chapter 26

1 ¶ On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; God has established salvation as its walls and bulwarks.

2 Open the gates, so that a righteous nation that keeps the truth may enter in.

3 You will keep him whose mind is fixed on you in perfect peace: because he trusts in you.

4 Trust in the LORD forever: for in the LORD JAHWEH is everlasting strength:

5 ¶ For he brings down those who dwell on high; he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground; he throws it in the dust.

6 The feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy, will trample it underfoot.

7 The path of the righteous is straight: you, who are holy, will make smooth the path of the righteous.

8 Yea, in the path your judgement requires, O LORD, we have waited for you; your name, and the memory of you, is the desire of our heart.

9 My soul yearns for you in the night; yea, within me my spirit seeks you earnestly: for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

10 If favor is shown to the wicked, he will not learn righteousness: in a righteous land he will deal perversely, and will never see the LORD’S majesty.

11 LORD, though your hand is raised to strike, they do not see it: let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed; yea, let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

12 ¶ LORD, you will ordain peace for us: for you have wrought all our works in us.

13 O LORD our God, other masters besides you have had dominion over us: but we acknowledge your name alone.

14 They are dead, they will not reappear; and their spirits will not come back: you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out every remembrance of them.

15 You have increased the nation, O LORD, you have added to the nation: you are honored: you have expanded all the borders of the land.

16 LORD, they went to you in their distress, they poured out a prayer when your chastening was upon them.

17 In your sight O LORD, we have been like a woman with child; hurting, and crying out in pain, because her time of delivery draws near.

18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, but we have as it were only brought forth wind; we have not brought deliverance to the earth; nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

19 But your dead will live, together with my dead body they will arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust: for your dew is like the dew of the fields, and the earth will deliver up the dead.

20 ¶ Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut the doors behind you: hide yourself as it were for a little while, until the Lord’s wrath has passed.

21 For, behold, the LORD is coming from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their sin: the earth will also reveal the blood shed on it, and will no longer conceal her slain.