5. Thus saith God, Jehovah, Who created the heavens and stretched them out; Who spread the earth, and its productions; Who gave the spirit of life to the people upon it, and the breath of life to them that walk upon it: 6. I, Jehovah, I have called Thee in righteousness, and grasped Thy hand; and I keep Thee, and make Thee the covenant of the people, the light of the Gentiles, 7. to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners out of the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house.
8. I am Jehovah, that is My name, and My glory I will not give to another, nor My renown to idols. 9. The first, behold, is come to pass, and new things am I proclaiming; before it springs up, I will let you hear it.
10. Sing ye to Jehovah a new song, His praise from the end of the earth, ye navigators of the sea, and its fulness; ye islands and their inhabitants. 11. Let the desert and the cities thereof strike up, the villages the Kedar doth inhabit; the inhabitants of the rock-city may rejoice, about from the summits of the mountains. 12. Let them give glory to Jehovah, and proclaim His praise in the islands. 13. Jehovah, like a hero will He go forth, kindle jealousy like a man of war; He will break forth into a war-cry, a yelling war-cry, prove Himself a hero upon His enemies.
14. I have been silent eternally long, over still, restrained myself; like[2] a travailing woman, I now breathe again, snort and snuff together. 15. I will make waste mountains and hills, and all their herbage I dry up, and change streams into islands, and lakes I dry up. 16. And I lead the blind by a way that they know not; by steps that they know not, I make them walk; I turn dark space before them into light, and rugged places into a plain. These are the things that I carry out, and do not leave.
17. They fall back, are put deeply to shame, that trust in molten images, that say to the molten image, Thou art our god.
18. Ye deaf, hear; and ye blind, look up that ye may see.
19. Who is blind but My servant? and deaf, as My messenger who I send? who blind as the confident of God, and blind as the servant of Jehovah? 20. Thou hast seen much, and yet keepest not; opening the ears, he yet doth not hear. 21. Jehovah was pleased for His righteousness’ sake: He gave a Church [direction, instruction, revelation] great and glorious. 22. And yet it is a people robbed and plundered; fastened in holes all of them, and they are hidden in prison-houses: they have become booty, without deliverers; a spoil, without any one saying, Give it up again!
23. Who among you will give ear to this, attend, and hear afar off? 24. Who has given up Jacob to plundering, and Israel to the spoilers? Is it not Jehovah, against whom we have sinned? and they would not walk in His way, and hearkened not to His law. 25. Then He poured upon it in burning heat His wrath, and the strength of the fury of war: and this set it in flames round about, and it did not come to be recognised; it set on fire, and it did not lay it to heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] He shall cause judgment to go forth unto truth.—Kay.