ISAIAH
CHAPTER 26

A Song of Praise
¹ In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;
God makes salvation
its walls and ramparts.
² Open the gates
that the righteous nation may enter,
the nation that keeps faith.
³ You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.
⁴ Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD , the LORD , is the Rock eternal.
⁵ He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.
⁶ Feet trample it down-
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.

⁷ The path of the righteous is level;
O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth.
⁸ Yes, LORD , walking in the way of your laws, ^[1]
we wait for you;
your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts.
⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night;
in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
the people of the world learn righteousness.
¹⁰ Though grace is shown to the wicked,
they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
and regard not the majesty of the LORD .
¹¹ O LORD , your hand is lifted high,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame;
let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

¹² LORD , you establish peace for us;
all that we have accomplished you have done for us.
¹³ O LORD , our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone do we honor.
¹⁴ They are now dead, they live no more;
those departed spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
you wiped out all memory of them.
¹⁵ You have enlarged the nation, O LORD ;
you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
you have extended all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ LORD , they came to you in their distress;
when you disciplined them,
they could barely whisper a prayer. ^[2]
17 As a woman with child and about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pain,
so were we in your presence, O LORD .
¹⁸ We were with child, we writhed in pain,
but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth;
we have not given birth to people of the world.

¹⁹ But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead.

²⁰ Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.
²¹ See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.

Footnotes

1. 26:8 Or judgments
2. 26:16 The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain.

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Bible text from Gospelcom.net.  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

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