Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ¹  they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ²  they will not ³  look with pity on children.

Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ¹  Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ²  Even if mothers ³  were to forget, I could never forget you! ⁴ 

This is what the Lord, the one who made you, says – the one who formed you in the womb and helps you: “Don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob, Jeshurun, ¹  whom I have chosen!

This is what the Lord, your protector, ¹  says, the one who formed you in the womb: “I am the Lord, who made everything, who alone stretched out the sky, who fashioned the earth all by myself, ² 

“Listen to me, O family of Jacob, ¹  all you who are left from the family of Israel, ²  you who have been carried from birth, ³  you who have been supported from the time you left the womb. ⁴ 

Listen to me, you coastlands! ¹  Pay attention, you people who live far away! The Lord summoned me from birth; ²  he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world. ³ 

You did not hear, you do not know, you were not told beforehand. ¹  For I know that you are very deceitful; ²  you were labeled ³  a rebel from birth.

So now the Lord says, the one who formed me from birth ¹  to be his servant – he did this ²  to restore Jacob to himself, so that Israel might be gathered to him; and I will be honored ³  in the Lord’s sight, for my God is my source of strength ⁴  –