I look, but there is no one, among them there is no one who serves as an adviser, that I might ask questions and receive answers.

Look, all of them are nothing, ¹  their accomplishments are nonexistent; their metal images lack any real substance. ² 

He will not cry out or shout; he will not publicize himself in the streets. ¹ 

A crushed reed he will not break, a dim wick he will not extinguish; ¹  he will faithfully make just decrees. ² 

This is what the true God, ¹  the Lord, says – the one who created the sky and stretched it out, the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, ²  the one who gives breath to the people on it, and life to those who live on it: ³ 

Look, my earlier predictive oracles have come to pass; ¹  now I announce new events. Before they begin to occur, I reveal them to you.” ² 

Sing to the Lord a brand new song! Praise him ¹  from the horizon of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and everything that lives in it, ²  you coastlands ³  and those who live there!

My servant is truly blind, my messenger is truly deaf. My covenant partner, ¹  the servant of the Lord, is truly blind. ² 

The Lord wanted to exhibit his justice by magnifying his law and displaying it. ¹ 

All nations gather together, the peoples assemble. Who among them announced this? Who predicted earlier events for us? ¹  Let them produce their witnesses to testify they were right; let them listen and affirm, ‘It is true.’

I decreed and delivered and proclaimed, and there was no other god among you. You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “that I am God.

From this day forward I am he; no one can deliver from my power; ¹  I will act, and who can prevent it?”

This is what the Lord says, the one who made a road through the sea, a pathway through the surging waters,

the people whom I formed for myself, so they might praise me.” ¹ 

The father of your nation ¹  sinned; your spokesmen ²  rebelled against me.

Look, all his associates ¹  will be put to shame; the craftsmen are mere humans. ²  Let them all assemble and take their stand! They will panic and be put to shame.

A carpenter takes measurements; ¹  he marks out an outline of its form; ²  he scrapes ³  it with chisels, and marks it with a compass. He patterns it after the human form, ⁴  like a well-built human being, and puts it in a shrine. ⁵ 

No one thinks to himself, nor do they comprehend or understand and say to themselves: ‘I burned half of it in the fire – yes, I baked bread over the coals; I roasted meat and ate it. With the rest of it should I make a disgusting idol? Should I bow down to dry wood?’ ¹ 

who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ¹  and humiliates ²  the omen readers, who overturns the counsel of the wise men ³  and makes their advice ⁴  seem foolish,

who fulfills the oracles of his prophetic servants ¹  and brings to pass the announcements ²  of his messengers, who says about Jerusalem, ³  ‘She will be inhabited,’ and about the towns of Judah, ‘They will be rebuilt, her ruins I will raise up,’