Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 46
Bel has crouched down and Nebo has stooped low,
their images, upon them, are a load,
on beasts and castle, how they must be borne,
as burdens on the animals, forlorn.
They’re stooping and together they bow down,
the burden isn’t something that can save.
Themselves, gone to captivity, have they.
O house of Jacob, hear this, what I say.
All of the house of Is’rael who remain,
whom I have carried since your infancy,
whom I have borne since when you were conceived.
To your old age, e’en then, I am the same.
I’ll bear you even when your hair turns gray.
I have made you, it’s you whom I shall bear,
to safety, you, whom I shall carry there.
With whom can you compare me, or equate
me with, or match as though we were the same?
Those who, gold, lavish, from the purse and weigh
out silver in the balance of their scales–
to make a god, a goldsmith, they engage;
in worship, they, before it, lie prostrate.
They hoist it shoulder-high and in parade,
they carry it to stand it in its place.
There will it stand, it never moves away.
You may cry out to it in your distress,
but no replies to you will it express,
or any one, from trouble, will it save.
Abandon hope, and then remember this,
you rebels, this, consider, and then train
your mind on what has happened long ago,
for I am God, and, other, there is no;
I am God and there is none that’s like me.
The end, from the beginning, I reveal,
and from times, ancient, what is yet to be.
I say, “My purpose stands, with certainty.
I shall accomplish everything I please.”
A bird of prey, I summon from the east–
my man, predestined, from a distant land.
He is the one to carry out my plan.
I’ve spoken and, pass, I shall bring it to,
what I have planned, that is what I will do.
Now listen to me, you, who’re hard of heart.
You who’re, off from deliverance, afar:
it’s my deliverance, what I bring near,
and my salvation will not be delayed;
salvation, my, in Zion, I will place,
my glory, it’s to Is’rael, I convey.
T.H. Chalm 