Shaya 40
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and proclaim to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from Allah's hand double for all her sins. 3The voice of one calling out in the wilderness, Make ready the way of Allah; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley will be filled. Every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will be straightened, and the rough places made smooth: 5and the glory of Allah will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; [1] for the mouth of Allah has spoken it. 6The voice of one saying, Cry out! One said, What shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of Allah blows on it; surely the people is grass. 8The grass withers, and its flower falls; but the word of our God stands forever.[2] 9You who bring the Injil to Al-Quds, go up on a high mountain; you who bring the Injil to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength; lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your God! 10Behold, the Lord Allah will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and will gently lead those who have young. 12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and measured the sky with a span? Who has calculated the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 13Who has known the mind of Allah, or who has taught him as his counsellor?[3] 14With whom did he take counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? 15Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales: Behold, he takes up the islands as a very little thing. 16Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its animals sufficient for a burnt offering. 17All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity. 18To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him? 19The image, a workman has cast it, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. 20He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks to him a skillful workman to set up an engraved image, that shall not be moved. 21Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, whose inhabitants are as grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in; 23who brings princes to nothing; who makes the judges of the earth as vanity. 24They scarcely get planted, they hardly get sown, their stock barely takes root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble. 25To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal to him? says the Holy One. 26Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their host by number; he calls them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is lacking. 27Why do you speak, Yaqub, and Israel why do you say, My way is hidden from Allah, and the justice due to me is passed over by my God? 28Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, Allah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. 29He gives power to the faint; and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31but those who wait for Allah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.
[1] 40:3-5 Quoted in the Injil in Luke 3:4-6. Verse 3 only is quoted in Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:3, and John 1:23.
[2] 40:6,8 Quoted in the Injil in 1 Peter 1:24-25.