1Hear ye me, that follow that that is just, and seek the Lord. Take ye heed to the stone, from whence ye be hewn down, and to the cave of the pit, from which ye be cut down.

2Take ye heed to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, that childed you; for I called him when he was but one, or without an heir, and I blessed him, and I multiplied him.

3Therefore the Lord shall comfort Zion, and he shall comfort all the fallings thereof; and he shall set the desert thereof in delights, and the wilderness thereof as a garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, the doing of thankings and the voice of praising.

4My people, take ye heed to me, and, my lineage, hear ye me; for why a law shall go out from me, and my doom shall rest into the light of peoples.

5My just [or rightwise]man is nigh, my saviour is gone out, and mine arms shall deem peoples; isles shall abide me, and shall suffer mine arm.

6Raise your eyes to heaven, and see ye under earth beneath; for why heavens shall melt away as smoke, and the earth shall be all-broken as a cloth, and the dwellers thereof shall perish as these things; but mine health shall be without end, and my rightfulness [or rightwiseness] shall not fail.

7Ye people, that know the just [or rightwise]man, hear me, my law is in the heart of them; do not ye dread the shame of men, and dread ye not the blasphemies of them.

8For why a worm shall eat them so as a cloth, and a moth shall devour them so as wool; but mine health shall be without end, and my rightfulness [or rightwiseness] into generations of generations.

9Rise thou, rise thou, arm of the Lord, be thou clothed in strength; rise thou, as in [the] eld days, in generations of worlds. Whether thou smitedest not the proud man, wound-edest not the dragon?

10Whether thou driedest not the sea, the water of the great depth, which settedest [or puttest] the depth of the sea to be a way, that men that were delivered, should pass [over]?

11And now they that be again-bought of the Lord shall turn again, and shall come praising into Zion, and everlasting gladness on the heads of them; they shall hold joy and gladness, and sorrow and wailing shall flee away.

12I, I myself, that is, I am he, I am he, that shall comfort you; who art thou, that thou dreadest of a deadly man, and of the son of man, that shall wax dry so as hay?

13And thou hast forgotten the Lord, thy Creator, that stretched abroad heavens, and founded the earth; and thou dreadedest continually all day of the face of his strong vengeance, that did tribulation to thee, and made ready for to lose. Where is now the strong vengeance of the troubler?

14Soon he shall come, going for to open; and he shall not slay till to death, neither his bread shall fail.

15Forsooth I am thy Lord God, that trouble the sea, and the waves thereof wax great; the Lord of hosts is my name.

16I have put my words in thy mouth, and I defended thee in the shadow of mine hand; that thou plant heavens, and found the earth, and say to Zion, Thou art my people.

17Be thou raised, be thou raised, rise thou, Jerusalem, that hast drunk of the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath; thou hast drunk unto the bottom of the cup of sleep, thou hast drunk of unto the dregs.

18None there is that sustaineth it, of all the sons which it engendered; and none there is that taketh the hand thereof, of all the sons which it nourished.

19Two things there be that came to thee; who shall be sorry on thee? destroying, and defouling, and hunger, and sword. Who shall comfort thee?

20Thy sons be cast forth, they slept in the head of all ways, as the beast oryx, taken with a snare; they be full of [the] indignation of the Lord, of the blaming of thy God.

21Therefore thou poor, and drunken, not of wine, hear these things.

22The Lordly Governor, thy Lord, and thy God, that fought for his people, saith these things, Lo! I have taken from thine hand the cup of sleep, the bottom of the cup of mine indignation; I shall not lay to, that thou drink it any more.

23And I shall set it in the hand of them that made thee low, and said to thy soul, Be thou bowed, that we pass; and thou hast set thy body as earth, and as a way to them that go forth.