The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 26

 The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 26

1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city, whose salvation God has made its walls and bulwarks.

2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter into it, who keeps the truth.

3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose mind is stayed on you, because they trust in you.

4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

5 For he will bring down those who dwell in high places; he will humble the exalted city to the ground, and bring it down to the dust.

6 The foot will tread it down: the feet of the afflicted, and the steps of the needy.

7 The way of the righteous is all level; you weigh out the way of the just.

8 Even in the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; in your name and in your remembrance is the desire of our soul.

 9 With my soul I longed for you in the night, and with my spirit within me I rose early to seek you; for when your judgments were in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learned righteousness.

10 Though favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; even in the land of uprightness he practices iniquity and does not consider the majesty of the Lord.

11 O Lord, your hand is exalted, yet they do not see it; but they will see it and be ashamed because of your zeal for your people; and fire will consume your adversaries.

12 O Lord, you will give us peace, for you have wrought all our works in us.

13 O Lord our God, other lords have ruled over us, but through you alone we remember your name.

14 If they die, they will not live; They will not rise again when they die; therefore you visited them and destroyed them, and blotted out all memory of them.

15 You, Lord, have increased this nation; you have increased this nation; you have made yourself glorious; but you have driven them far away, to all the ends of the earth.

16 Lord, they have visited you in distress; when your discipline came upon them, they poured out their secret prayer.

17 As a pregnant woman when her time draws near, she labors and cries out in her pains, so we have been for your sake, O Lord.

18 We have conceived, we have labored in labor, but it was only wind; we have not brought deliverance to the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

19 Your dead will live, your slain will be raised; awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust, for your dew will be like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the dead. 

20 Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while, until his wrath has passed by. 

21 For behold, the Lord will come out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will disclose her bloodshed and will no longer cover her slain.