Isaiah, 26

1. That day, this song will be sung in Judah: 'We have a fortress city, the walls and ramparts provide safety.

2. Open the gates! Let the upright nation come in, the nation that keeps faith!

3. This is the plan decreed: you will guarantee peace, the peace entrusted to you.

4. Trust in Yahweh for ever, for Yahweh is a rock for ever.

5. He has brought low the dwellers on the heights, the lofty citadel; he lays it low, brings it to the ground, flings it down in the dust.

6. It will be trodden under foot, by the feet of the needy, the steps of the weak.'

7. The path of the Upright One is honesty; you smooth the honest way of the upright.

8. Following the path of your judgements, Yahweh, we set our hopes in you, your name, your memory are all our soul desires.

9. At night my soul longs for you and my spirit within me seeks you out; for when your judgements appear on earth the inhabitants of the world learn what saving justice is.

10. If pity is shown to the wicked without his learning what saving justice is, he will act wrongly in the land of right conduct and not see the majesty of Yahweh.

11. Yahweh, your hand is raised but they do not see! The antagonists of your people will look and grow pale; with your fiery wrath you will devour your enemies.

12. Yahweh, you will grant us peace, having completed all our undertakings for us.

13. Yahweh our God, other lords than you have ruled us but, loyal to you alone, we invoke your name.

14. The dead will not come back to life, the shadows will not rise again, for you have punished them, annihilated them, wiping out their very memory.

15. You have made the nation larger, Yahweh, made the nation larger and won yourself glory, you have rolled back the frontiers of the country.

16. Yahweh, in distress they had recourse to you, they expended themselves in prayer, since your punishment was on them.

17. As a pregnant woman near her time of delivery writhes and cries out in her pangs, so have we been, Yahweh, in your eyes:

18. we have been pregnant, we have writhed, but we have given birth only to wind: we have not given salvation to the earth, no inhabitants for the world have been brought to birth.

19. Your dead will come back to life, your corpses will rise again. Wake up and sing, you dwellers in the dust, for your dew will be a radiant dew, but the earth will give birth to the shades.

20. Go, my people, go to your private room, shut yourselves in. Hide yourselves a little while until the retribution has passed.

21. For see, Yahweh emerges from his dwelling to punish the inhabitants of earth for their guilt; and the earth will reveal the blood shed on it and no longer hide its slain.