Study Desk

I will be full of joy in the Lord, my soul will be glad in my God; for he has put on me the clothing of salvation, covering me with the robe of righteousness, as the husband puts on a fair head-dress, and the bride makes herself beautiful with jewels.

For as the earth puts out buds, and as the garden gives growth to the seeds which are planted in it, so the Lord will make righteousness and praise to be flowering before all the nations.

You will not now be named, She who is given up; and your land will no longer be named, The waste land: but you will have the name, My pleasure is in her, and your land will be named, Married: for the Lord has pleasure in you, and your land will be married.

For as a young man takes a virgin for his wife, so will your maker be married to you: and as a husband has joy in his bride, so will the Lord your God be glad over you.

The Lord has taken an oath by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Truly, I will no longer give your grain to be food for your haters; and men of strange countries will not take the wine for which your work has been done:

But those who have got in the grain will have it for their food, and will give praise to the Lord; and those who have got in the grapes will take the wine of them in the open places of my holy house.

Who is this who comes from Edom, with blood-red robes from Bozrah? he whose clothing is fair, stepping with pride in his great strength? I whose glory is in the right, strong for salvation.

For the day of punishment is in my heart, and the year for the payment of the price for my people has come.

I will give news of the mercies of the Lord, and his great acts, even all the things the Lord has done for us, in his great grace to the house of Israel; even all he has done for us in his unnumbered mercies.

For he said, Truly they are my people, children who will not be false: so he was their saviour out of all their trouble.

It was no sent one or angel, but he himself who was their saviour: in his love and in his pity he took up their cause, and he took them in his arms, caring for them all through the years.

For you are our father, though Abraham has no knowledge of us, and Israel gives no thought to us: you, O Lord, are our father; from the earliest days you have taken up our cause.

While you do acts of power for which we are not looking, and which have not come to the ears of men in the past.

The ear has not had news of, or the eye seen, Three dots are used where it is no longer possible to be certain of the true sense of the Hebrew words, and for this reason no attempt has been made to put them into Basic English. any God but you, working for the man who is waiting for him.

For we have all become like an unclean person, and all our good acts are like a dirty robe: and we have all become old like a dead leaf, and our sins, like the wind, take us away.

And there is no one who makes prayer to your name, or who is moved to keep true to you: for your face is veiled from us, and you have given us into the power of our sins.

Be not very angry, O Lord, and do not keep our sins in mind for ever: give ear to our prayer, for we are all your people.

I have been ready to give an answer to those who did not make prayer to me; I have been offering myself to those who were not searching for me; I said, Here am I, here am I, to a nation which gave no respect to my name.

Who are seated in the resting-places of the dead, and by night are in the secret places; who take pig's flesh for food, and have the liquid of disgusting things in their vessels.

Who say, Keep away, do not come near me, for fear that I make you holy: these are a smoke in my nose, a fire burning all day.