Remember Your Ancestors
Listen to me, you who try to do what is right. Remember where you came from. Remember Abraham, your ancestor. Remember Sarah who gave birth to your people. I called Abraham when he was alone. I blessed him. The Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her empty places. He will make her dry lands like the Garden of Eden. People there will be happy. They will give thanks and sing.
God’s Rescue Lasts Forever
Listen to me, my people. My nation, hear me! My law will go out from me. My fairness will be a light for all people. My goodness is near. My rescue has already gone out. My arm will judge the people. The islands will wait for me. They will trust my arm. Look up at the sky. Look at the earth below. The sky will disappear like smoke. The earth will wear out like old clothes. The people living there will die the same way. But my rescue will last forever. My goodness will never end.
Listen to me, you who know what is right. You are the people who have my law in your hearts. Don’t be afraid when people insult you. Don’t be scared when they make fun of you. Moths will eat them up like clothes. Worms will eat them like wool. But my goodness will last forever. My rescue will continue for all time.
God Will Save His People
Wake up! Wake up! Be strong, arm of the Lord! Wake up like in the old days. Weren’t you the one who cut Rahab to pieces? Weren’t you the one who hurt the dragon? Weren’t you the one who dried up the sea? You made a path through the deep waters. You made a way for your saved people to cross over. So the Lord’s saved people will return. They will come to Zion singing. Joy that never ends will be on their heads. They will be happy. Sadness and crying will go away.
I am the one who comforts you. Why are you afraid of people who will die? Why fear humans who are like grass? You forget the Lord who made you. He stretched out the sky and made the earth. Every day you are afraid of your enemy. You think he is ready to destroy you. But where is your enemy’s anger now? The prisoners will soon be set free. They won’t die in prison. They won’t run out of food. I am the Lord your God. I make the waves roar. My name is the Lord of Armies. I have put my words in your mouth. I have covered you with my hand’s shadow. I planted the sky and made the earth. I say to Zion: 'You are my people.'
Jerusalem Will Be Free
Wake up! Wake up! Stand up, Jerusalem! You have drunk the Lord’s anger from his cup. You have drunk every drop from the cup of shaking. None of the children you gave birth to can guide you. None of the children you raised can take your hand. Two terrible things have happened to you. Who will feel sorry for you? Your land is destroyed and empty. People are hungry and killed by swords. How can I comfort you? Your children have fainted, except for two. They lie at every street corner like wild animals caught in a net. They are filled with the Lord’s anger and with God’s strong words.
So listen to this, you who are suffering. You are drunk, but not from wine. Your Lord God speaks for his people. He says: 'I have taken the cup of shaking from your hand. You drank my anger from that cup. You will never drink from it again.' 'I will give that cup to those who hurt you. They told you: ‘Lie down so we can walk on you.’ You made your back like the ground. You became like a street for them to walk on.'
Wake up! Wake up! Be strong, Zion! Put on your beautiful clothes, Jerusalem, the holy city. Unholy and unclean people will never enter you again. Shake off the dust! Get up and sit down, Jerusalem. Free yourself from the chains on your neck, captured daughter of Zion.
Influences
- 8:1 — Isaiah 51:1 (KJV)Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
- 8:2 — Isaiah 51:2 (KJV)Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
- 8:3 — Isaiah 51:3 (KJV)For the LORD shall 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.
- 8:4 — Isaiah 51:4 (KJV)Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto 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.
- 8:5 — Isaiah 51:5 (KJV)My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.
- 8:6 — Isaiah 51:6 (KJV)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 wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
- 8:7 — Isaiah 51:7 (KJV)Hearken unto 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.
- 8:8 — Isaiah 51:8 (KJV)For the moth shall eat them up 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.
- 8:9 — Isaiah 51:9 (KJV)Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
- 8:10 — Isaiah 51:10 (KJV)Art thou not it 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?
- 8:11 — Isaiah 51:11 (KJV)Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
- 8:12 — Isaiah 51:12 (KJV)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 which shall be made as grass;
- 8:13 — Isaiah 51:13 (KJV)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?
- 8:14 — Isaiah 51:14 (KJV)The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
- 8:15 — Isaiah 51:15 (KJV)But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
- 8:16 — Isaiah 51:16 (KJV)And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
- 8:17 — Isaiah 51:17 (KJV)Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
- 8:18 — Isaiah 51:18 (KJV)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.
- 8:19 — Isaiah 51:19 (KJV)These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
- 8:20 — Isaiah 51:20 (KJV)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.
- 8:22 — Isaiah 51:22 (KJV)Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
- 8:23 — Isaiah 51:23 (KJV)But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
- 8:24 — Isaiah 52:1 (KJV)Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
- 8:25 — Isaiah 52:2 (KJV)Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.