Isaiah 49:18-23

49:18 Look all around you! ¹ 

All of them gather to you.

As surely as I live,” says the Lord,

“you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry;

you will put them on as if you were a bride.

49:19 Yes, your land lies in ruins;

it is desolate and devastated. ² 

But now you will be too small to hold your residents,

and those who devoured you will be far away.

49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement

will say within your hearing,

‘This place is too cramped for us, ³ 

make room for us so we can live here.’ ⁴ 

49:21 Then you will think to yourself, ⁵ 

‘Who bore these children for me?

I was bereaved and barren,

dismissed and divorced. ⁶ 

Who raised these children?

Look, I was left all alone;

where did these children come from?’”

49:22 This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“Look I will raise my hand to the nations;

I will raise my signal flag to the peoples.

They will bring your sons in their arms

and carry your daughters on their shoulders.

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ⁷  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ⁸ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ⁹  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

[49:18]  ¹ tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”

[49:19]  ² tn Heb “Indeed your ruins and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction.” This statement is abruptly terminated in the Hebrew text and left incomplete.

[49:20]  ³ tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.

[49:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”

[49:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”

[49:21]  ⁶ tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”

[49:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ⁸ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ⁹ tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”