Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 40

Console my people, comfort, bring to them,

your God says.  Tenderly, Jerusalem,

speak to her, and as well, cry out to her,

tell how her term of bondage has been served,

and how it is, her penalty’s been paid,

that from the LORD’s hand, what she has received:

a double punishment for all her sins.

A voice cries out, “It’s through the wilderness,

where, of the LORD, the way, you now prepare!

A highway for our God, make straight through there, 

the desert.  Ev’ry valley, how they’ll be

uplifted, and how ev’ry mountain peak

and hill will be made low; uneven ground,

shall be made level, and how they’ll be turned,

the places, rough, into a plain.  The LORD,

that moment will his glory be revealed,

and people, it, together, they will see,

for, of the LORD, his mouth, has spake, words, these.”

A voice said, “Cry aloud!” and I replied,

“What shall I cry?” “Is grass, all of mankind,

and all their glory like that, of the field,

the flower, it’s the time that it will last.

The flower fades, and, withers, all the grass

when, on it, the LORD’s breath blows like a blast;

for certainly all people are like grass.
The grass, it withers, and the flower fades,

but it’s forever, how long it remains,

the word of our God stands firm in its place.

A mountain, high, get up there, you who bring

good news to Zion, how you should, with strength,

lift up your voice, and tell it without fear,

the good news, to Jerusalem; declare

to Judah’s cities, say: “Your God is here!”

See, how, with might, the LORD God comes, his arm,

by it, his rule, what it maintains for him;

with him will his reward fore’er attend,

and him, preceding, is his recompense. 

He’ll feed his flock just like a shepherd tends

his sheep; his arms, in, gathers all the lambs,

and, in his bosom, he will carry them,

he leads the mother sheep where they’ll have rest.

The waters of the sea, who was it that,

them, measured, with the hollow of his hand,

and marked the heavens with a gauging span,

and weighed the earth’s dust, how great is its mass, 

the mountains’ weight, who measured using scales,

and with a balance, who weighed all the hills?

Who has directed his, what is inside,

the spirit of the LORD, or as one wise,

a counselor, who has instructed him?

With whom did he, for his enlightenment,

consult, and who, the path of justice, taught

to him?  Who, knowledge, taught him, and showed him

the way of understanding?  Even them,

the nations, they are likened to a drop,

a bucket, from, and even on the scales,

they are accounted for like weightless dust;

see, like fine dust, he’s taking up the isles.

Would not provide fuel, Lebanon, enough,

for a burnt offering, nor, they enough,

its animals, are.  How the nations are

as nothing when they are placed, him, before;

as less than nothing, too, and emptiness,

how he accounts for them: their worthlessness.

Then, will you liken him, our God, to whom?

What likeness, to, do you compare with him?

An idol?  Something that a workman casts,

then overlays with gold, that metal’s smith,

and casts for it its silver chains.  Too, as a gift,

one chooses wood from the mulberry tree,

the type of wood that never will, rot, see–

then out, an artisan, skilled, one will seek,

to set an image up specifically

so no one ever sees its toppling.

Have you not known?  Is it that you’ve not heard?

From the beginning, has it not been told

to you? Is it that you’ve not understood

since, from the earth’s foundations?  It is he

who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants, like grasshoppers,

are; who stretches them out, like those of heav’n,

its curtains, spreads them out just like a tent,

to live in; who brings princess, all, to naught,

as nothing, makes the rulers of the earth.

They’re scarcely planted, are they scarcely sown,

has their stem taken, does the earth, it know,

its root, when he will on them strongly blow

and then they wither, how the tempest will, 

like stubble, carry them off, in the air.

To whom, then, will you liken me, compare,

or who’s my equal? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and you will see:

Who was it that created all of these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them

and all of them he’s calling each by name

because he’s great in strength and how, in pow’r,

he’s mighty, missing not a single one.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do

you speak, O Is’rael, “Hidden from the LORD,

how my way is and disregarded, is,

my right, by my God”?  Have you not known it?

Have you not heard? The everlasting God,

the LORD is, the Creator of the earth,

its very ends.  He does not, weary, grow,

or ever faint; his understanding is

unsearchable.  It’s power to the faint,

he gives, and strengthens all the powerless.

Youths, even, them, will faint and, weary, be,

and all the young, how they’ll exhausted, fall;

but those who, for the LORD, wait, shall renew

their strength, how they shall mount up certainly

with wings like eagles, how it is they’ll run?

They’ll not get weary, and how they shall walk?

They will go forward and they’ll never faint.