19 “Surely your waste and your desolate places
    and your devastated land—
(A)surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,
    and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
20 (B)The children of your bereavement
    will yet say in your ears:
(C)‘The place is too narrow for me;
    make room for me to dwell in.’
21 Then you will say in your heart:
    ‘Who has borne me these?
(D)I was bereaved and barren,
    exiled and put away,
    but who has brought up these?
Behold, I was left alone;
    from where have these come?’”

22 Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
    (E)and raise my signal to the peoples;
(F)and they shall bring your sons in their arms,[a]
    and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
23 (G)Kings shall be your foster fathers,
    and their queens your nursing mothers.
(H)With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
    and (I)lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    (J)those who wait for me (K)shall not be put to shame.”

24 Can the prey be taken from the mighty,
    or the captives of a tyrant[b] be rescued?
25 For thus says the Lord:
(L)“Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken,
    and the prey of the tyrant be rescued,
for I will contend with those who contend with you,
    and I will save your children.
26 (M)I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
    and they shall be drunk (N)with their own blood as with wine.
Then all flesh shall know
    that (O)I am the Lord your Savior,
    and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 49:22 Hebrew in their bosom
  2. Isaiah 49:24 Dead Sea Scroll, Syriac, Vulgate (see also verse 25); Masoretic Text of a righteous man

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