Isaiah 26

¹ In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
"We have a strong city;
he sets up salvation as walls and ramparts.

² Open the gates,
that the righteous nation may enter in,
the nation that keeps faith.

³ You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.

⁴ Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

⁵ For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height,
the lofty city;
he lays it low, lays it low to the ground,
casts it to the dust.

⁶ The foot tramples it,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.

⁷ The path of the righteous is level;
O Upright One, you make smooth the way of the righteous.

⁸ In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you;
your name and your remembrance are the desire of the soul.

⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰ If favor is shown to the wicked,
he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
and does not see the majesty of the LORD.

¹¹ O LORD, your hand is lifted up,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be ashamed;
yes, let fire consume your adversaries.

¹² O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have indeed accomplished all our works for us.

¹³ O LORD our God, lords other than you have ruled over us,
but your name alone we acknowledge.

¹⁴ They are dead; they will not live;
they are shades; they will not rise.
To that end you have visited and destroyed them
and wiped out all memory of them.

¹⁵ But you have increased the nation, O LORD;
you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
you have extended all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ O LORD, in distress they sought you;
they poured out a whispered prayer
when your discipline was upon them.

¹⁷ Like a pregnant woman about to give birth
who writhes and cries out in her birth pangs,
so were we before you, O LORD.

¹⁸ We were pregnant; we writhed;
we gave birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth;
no inhabitants of the world have fallen.

¹⁹ Your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
Awake and sing for joy,
you who dwell in the dust!
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.

²⁰ Come, my people; enter your rooms;
close your doors behind you.
Hide yourselves for a little while
until the wrath has passed by.

²¹ For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
and will no longer cover its slain.