I have stirred up one out of the north ¹  and he advances, one from the eastern horizon who prays in my name. ²  He steps on ³  rulers as if they were clay, like a potter treading the clay.

All of them respond to you, saying: ‘You too have become weak like us! You have become just like us!

As when a pregnant woman gets ready to deliver and strains and cries out because of her labor pains, so were we because of you, O Lord.

The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks, as I do today. A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.

Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! ¹  Truly I am God, I have no peer; ²  I am God, and there is none like me,

We were pregnant, we strained, we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹  We cannot produce deliverance on the earth; people to populate the world are not born. ² 

You will desecrate your silver-plated idols ¹  and your gold-plated images. ²  You will throw them away as if they were a menstrual rag, saying to them, “Get out!”

Who is like me? Let him make his claim! ¹  Let him announce it and explain it to me – since I established an ancient people – ²  let them announce future events! ³ 

Look up at the sky! Look at the earth below! For the sky will dissipate ¹  like smoke, and the earth will wear out like clothes; its residents will die like gnats. But the deliverance I give ²  is permanent; the vindication I provide ³  will not disappear. ⁴