An exhortation to trust in Christ. He shall protect the children of his church.

¹ Listen to me, you who follow what is just and who seek the Lord. Pay attention to the rock from which you have been hewn, and to the walls of the pit from which you have been dug.

² Pay attention to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who bore you. For I called him alone, and I blessed him, and I multiplied him.

³ Therefore, the Lord will console Zion, and he will console all its ruins. And he will turn her desert into a place of delights, and her wilderness into a garden of the Lord. Gladness and rejoicing will be found in her, thanksgiving and a voice of praise.

⁴ Pay attention to me, my people, and listen to me, my tribes. For a law will go forth from me, and my judgment will rest as a light for the nations.

⁵ My just one is near. My savior has gone forth. And my arms will judge the people. The islands will hope in me, and they will patiently wait for my arm.

⁶ Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look down to the earth below. For the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will be worn away like a garment, and its inhabitants will pass away in like manner. But my salvation will be forever, and my justice will not fail.

⁷ Listen to me, you who know what is just, my people who have my law in their heart. Do not be afraid of disgrace among men, and do not dread their blasphemies.

⁸ For the worm will consume them like a garment, and the moth will devour them like wool. But my salvation will be forever, and my justice will be from generation to generation.

⁹ Rise up, Rise up! Clothe yourself in strength, O arm of the Lord! Rise up as in the days of antiquity, as in generations long past. Have you not struck the arrogant one and wounded the dragon?

¹⁰ Have not you dried up the sea, the waters of the great abyss, and turned the depths of the sea into a road, so that the delivered could cross over it?

¹¹ And now, those who have been redeemed by the Lord will return. And they will arrive in Zion, praising. And everlasting rejoicing will be upon their heads. They will take hold of gladness and rejoicing. Anguish and mourning will flee away.

¹² It is I, I myself, who will console you. Who are you that you would be afraid of a mortal man, and of a son of man, who will wither like the grass?

¹³ And have you forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who extended the heavens, and who founded the earth? And have you been in constant dread, all day long, at the face of his fury, of the one who afflicted you and who had prepared to destroy you? Where is the fury of the oppressor now?

¹⁴ Advancing quickly, he will arrive to be revealed, and he will not kill unto utter destruction, nor will his bread fail.

¹⁵ But I am the Lord, your God, who stirs up the sea, and who makes the waves swell. The Lord of hosts is my name.

¹⁶ I have placed my words in your mouth, and I have protected you in the shadow of my hand, so that you might plant the heavens, and found the earth, and so that you might say to Zion, “You are my people.”

¹⁷ Lift up, Lift up! Arise, O Jerusalem! You drank, from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath. You drank, even to the bottom of the cup of deep sleep. And you were given to drink, all the way to the dregs.

¹⁸ There is no one who can uphold her, out of all the sons whom she has conceived. And there is no one who would take her by the hand, out of all the sons whom she has raised.

¹⁹ There are two things which have happened to you. Who will be saddened over you? There is devastation and destruction, and famine and sword. Who will console you?

²⁰ Your sons have been cast out. They have slept at the head of all the roads, and they have been ensnared like a gazelle. They have been filled by the indignation of the Lord, by the rebuke of your God.

²¹ Therefore, listen to this, O poor little ones, and you who have been inebriated, but not by wine.

²² Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord, and your God, who will fight on behalf of his people: Behold, I have taken the cup of deep sleep from your hand. You shall no longer drink from the bottom of the cup of my indignation.¹

1. 51:22The cup of deep sleep refers to the abomination of desolation, which is a perverse imitation of the holy Eucharist. Those who drink it willingly are like men who have been drugged, like men who are asleep to conscience and to truth.(Conte)

²³ And I will set it in the hand of those who have humiliated you, and who have said to your soul: “Bow down, so that we pass over.” And you placed your body on the ground, as a path for them to pass over.