The Lantern

Isaiah40

Prepare the Way for the LORD

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her term of service is finished, that her iniquity is accepted as paid, that she has taken from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.

A voice calling: In the wilderness clear the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert plain a highway for our God.

Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill brought low; and the crooked will become level ground, and the ridges a broad valley.

And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all flesh together will see — for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

The Enduring Word

A voice saying, Call! And he said, What shall I call? All flesh is grass, and all its loyal love like the blossom of the field.

Grass dries up, a blossom withers, for the breath of the LORD has blown on it. Surely the people is grass.

Grass dries up, a blossom withers — but the word of our God stands forever.

Here Is Your God!

Go up on a high mountain, herald of good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, herald of good news to Jerusalem. Lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah: See, your God!

See, the Lord GOD comes with strength, and his arm rules for him. See, his wage is with him, and his recompense before him.

Like a shepherd he pastures his flock; with his arm he gathers the lambs, and in his lap he carries them; the nursing ewes he leads gently.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and gauged the heavens with a span, and held in a measure the dust of the earth, and weighed mountains on a scale and hills in a balance?

Who has gauged the spirit of the LORD, and as the man of his counsel made him know?

With whom did he take counsel, that he gave him understanding and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge and made him know the way of insight?

See, nations are like a drop from a bucket, and like dust on a scale they are reckoned. See, he lifts up the coastlands like fine powder.

And Lebanon is not enough for burning, and its beasts not enough for a burnt offering.

All the nations are like nothing before him; less than nothing and emptiness they are reckoned to him.

To whom then will you liken God, and what likeness will you arrange for him?

The image — a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains.

The one too poor for such an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out for himself a skilled craftsman to set up an image that will not totter.

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Was it not told to you from the head? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth?

He is the one sitting above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a gauze and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

who gives rulers over to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth as emptiness.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, when he also blows on them and they dry up, and a storm carries them off like stubble.

To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? The one bringing out their host by number; to all of them he calls by name. By the greatness of his vigor and the might of his power, not one is missing.

Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and from my God my justice passes by”?

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth — he does not grow faint and he does not grow weary; there is no searching out his insight.

He gives power to the faint, and to the one with no vigor he increases might.

Even youths grow faint and weary, and young men utterly stumble;

but those who wait for the LORD will exchange strength; they will go up with wing like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint.