Isaiah 45

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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The LORD calls Cyrus by name

¹The LORD says this to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom I hold by the right hand to beat down nations before him and undo the sword belts of kings, to throw doors open ahead of him so that no gates stay shut: ²I myself will march ahead of you and flatten the rough ground. I will smash bronze doors and hack through iron bars. ³I will hand over to you treasures kept in the dark and wealth hoarded in hidden vaults. Then you will know that I am the LORD; the God of Israel is calling you by name. ⁴It was for Jacob my servant, for Israel my chosen one, that I called you by your name and honored you with a title, even though you did not know me. ⁵I am the LORD; there is no one else. Other than me, there is no God. I will buckle your belt on you for battle, though you have not known me, ⁶so that people from where the sun rises to where it sets may know that there is none but me. I am the LORD; there is no one else. ⁷I shape the light and I create the darkness; I bring about peace and I create calamity. I am the LORD, the one who does all of this.

⁸Heavens above, let righteousness trickle down; clouds, let it stream out. Earth, open up and yield a harvest of salvation, and let righteousness sprout along with it. I, the LORD, have brought it into being.

The clay and the potter

⁹Woe to anyone who argues with the one who shaped him, one shard among the shards of earthenware! Does the clay ask its potter, “What do you think you are making?” Does your handiwork say of you, “He has no hands”?

¹⁰Woe to anyone who says to a father, “What kind of child is this you are fathering?” or to a woman in labor, “What is this you are giving birth to?”

¹¹The LORD, the Holy One of Israel, the one who formed him, says this: Ask me about what is coming! Are you going to give me orders about my children, about the things my hands have made? ¹²I am the one who made the earth and created the human race to live on it. With my own hands I spread out the heavens, and I give orders to every star in them. ¹³I myself have roused him for my righteous purpose, and I will clear every path before him. He will build my city again and release my exiled people, without ransom or bribe, says the LORD of Armies.

¹⁴The LORD says this: The harvests of Egypt, the trade goods of Cush, and the Sabeans, a towering people, will pass into your hands and belong to you. They will march behind you in chains; they will cross over to you, bow low before you, and make their appeal to you: “God really is in your midst! There is no one else; there is no other god at all.” ¹⁵You are indeed a God who hides himself, God of Israel, who saves! ¹⁶Shame and humiliation will cover them all; those who carve idols will walk away together, disgraced. ¹⁷Israel is saved by the LORD, a salvation that lasts for all time. You will never be shamed or humiliated, through all the ages to come.

Salvation for the ends of the earth

¹⁸For the LORD says this, the creator of the heavens, the one who is God, who shaped the earth and made it, who set it firmly in place, who did not create it to be a barren waste but formed it for people to live on: I am the LORD; there is no one else. ¹⁹My words were not whispered in hiding, from some corner of a dark land. I never told Jacob’s offspring, “Look for me, but you will find nothing.” I am the LORD: what I say is righteous, and what I announce is upright. ²⁰Come, gather, approach together, you who escaped the nations! People who haul their wooden idols around understand nothing, praying to a god that has no power to save. ²¹Make your declaration and bring your evidence; let them plan their answer together! Who made this known in times long past and announced it back then? Was it not I, the LORD? No god exists other than me. I am a God who is righteous and who saves, and there is no one except me. ²²Turn toward me and be saved, every corner of the earth! I am God, and no one else is. ²³I have taken an oath by myself; a righteous word has gone out from my mouth and will not come back unfulfilled: to me every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear loyalty to me. ²⁴Of me they will say, “Only in the LORD is there righteousness and strength.” Everyone who burned with anger against him will come before him in shame. ²⁵In the LORD all Israel’s descendants will be shown to be in the right, and they will rejoice proudly in him.