1. BE comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.
2. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.
3. The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.
4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.
5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
6. The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the held.
7. The grass is withered, and the dower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:
8. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever.
9. Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God:
10. Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.
11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.
12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13. Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?
14. With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding?
15. Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust.
16. And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17. All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity.