When King Hezekiah’s servants came to Isaiah,

My servant is truly blind, my messenger is truly deaf. My covenant partner, the servant of the Lord, is truly blind.

Remember these things, O Jacob, O Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you to be my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you!

“At that time I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah.

“Now, listen, Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!”

He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, through whom I will reveal my splendor.”

“Look, my servant will succeed! He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted –

So this is what the sovereign Lord says: “Look, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry! Look, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty! Look, my servants will rejoice, but you will be humiliated!

I will shield this city and rescue it for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant.”’”

“You, my servant Israel, Jacob whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham my friend,

For the sake of my servant Jacob, Israel, my chosen one, I call you by name and give you a title of respect, even though you do not recognize me.

Having suffered, he will reflect on his work, he will be satisfied when he understands what he has done. “My servant will acquit many, for he carried their sins.

Why, Lord, do you make us stray from your ways, and make our minds stubborn so that we do not obey you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance!

I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah people to take possession of my mountains. My chosen ones will take possession of the land; my servants will live there.

Look, my servants will shout for joy as happiness fills their hearts! But you will cry out as sorrow fills your hearts; you will wail because your spirits will be crushed.

Your names will live on in the curse formulas of my chosen ones. The sovereign Lord will kill you, but he will give his servants another name.

Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them.

Later the Lord explained, “In the same way that my servant Isaiah has walked around in undergarments and barefoot for the past three years, as an object lesson and omen pertaining to Egypt and Cush,

Everyone will suffer – the priest as well as the people, the master as well as the servant, the elegant lady as well as the female attendant, the seller as well as the buyer, the borrower as well as the lender, the creditor as well as the debtor.

Certainly you will not refuse one of my master’s minor officials and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen.