¶ Be of good cheer my people, be of good cheer, (sayeth your God)
Comfort Ierusalem, and tell her, that her travail is at an end, that her offense is pardoned, that she hath received of the LORD's hand sufficient correction for all her sins.
¶ A voice crieth: Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness, make straight the path for our God in the desert.
Let all valleys be exalted, and every mountain and hill be laid low. What so is crooked, let it be made straight, and let the rough places be made plain fields.
For the glory of the LORD shall appear, and all flesh shall see it. For why? The mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
The same voice spake: Now cry. And I said: What shall I cry? Then spake it: That all flesh is grass, and that all the beauty thereof, is as the flower of the field.
When the grass is withered, the flower falleth away. Even so is the people as grass, when the breath of the LORD bloweth upon them.
Nevertheless whether the grass wither, or the flower fade away: Yet the word of our God endureth forever.
¶ Moreover the voice cried thus: Go up unto the hill (O Sion) thou that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with power, O thou preacher Ierusalem. Lift it up without fear, and say unto the cities of Iudah: Behold, your God,
behold the LORD, even the Allmighty shall come with power, and bear rule with his arm. Behold, he bringeth his treasure with him, and his works go before him.
He shall feed his flock like an herdman. He shall gather the lambs together with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall kindly entreat those that bear young.
¶ Who hath holden the waters in his fist? Who hath measured heaven with his span, and hath comprehended all the earth of the world in three fingers? Who hath weighed the mountains and hills?
Who hath reformed the mind of the LORD? Or who is of his counsel to teach him?
At whom hath he asked counsel, to make him understand, and to learn him the way of judgement: to teach him science: and to instruct him in the way of understanding.
Behold, all people are in comparison of him, as a drop to a bucket full, and are counted as the least thing that the balance weigheth. Behold, the Isles are in comparison of him, as the shadow of the son beam.
Libanus is not sufficient to minister fire for his offering, and all the beasts thereof are not enough to one sacrifice.
All people in comparison of him are reckoned as nothing, yea vain vanity and emptiness.
¶ To whom then will ye liken God? or what similitude will ye set up unto him?
Shall the carver make him a carved image? and shall the goldsmith cover him with gold, or cast him into a form of silver plates?
Moreover shall the image maker, that the poor man which is disposed, may have something to set up also, seek out and choose a tree, that is not rotten, and carve thereout an image, that moveth not?
Know ye not this? Heard ye never of it? Hath it not been preached unto you since the beginning? Have ye not been enformed of this since the foundation of the earth was laid:
That he sitteth upon the Circle of the world, and that all the inhabiters of the world are in comparison of him, but as grasshoppers: That he spreadeth out the heavens as a covering, that he stretcheth them out, as a tent to dwell in:
That he bringeth princes to nothing, and the judges of the earth to dust:
so that they be not planted, nor sown again, neither their stock rooted again in the earth? For as soon as he bloweth upon them, they wither and fade away, like the straw in a whirlwind.
To whom now will ye liken me, and whom shall I be like, sayeth the holy one?
Lift up your eyes on high, and consider. Who hath made those things, which come out by so great heaps? and he can call them all by their names. For there is nothing hid unto the greatness of his power, strength, and might.
¶ How may then Iacob think, or how may Israel say: My ways are hid from the LORD, and my God knoweth not of my judgments.
Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, which made all the corners of the earth, is neither weary nor faint: and that his wisdom can not be comprehended?
but that he giveth strength unto the weary, and power unto the faint?
Children are weary and faint, and the strongest men fall:
But unto them that have the LORD before their eyes, shall strength be increased, Aegles wings shall grow upon them: When they run, they shall not fall: and when they go, they shall not be weary.
Praise the Everlasting Lord for His Faithful Word.