The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 55
All people are invited to seek salvation
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
4 “See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.”
5 Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation that never knew you will run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
12 For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills shall burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush shall come up the cypress, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.