Isaiah 49:14-26

English Standard Version Anglicised

¹⁴ But Zion said, ^(A)“The Lord has forsaken me;
    my Lord has forgotten me.”
^15 (B)“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
    that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
    yet I will not forget you.
¹⁶ Behold, ^(C)I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before me.
¹⁷ Your builders make haste;^{[a]
    (D)}your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.
^18 (E)Lift up your eyes all round and see;
    they all gather, they come to you.
^(F)As I live, declares the Lord,
    ^(G)you shall put them all on as an ornament;
    you shall bind them on as a bride does.
¹⁹ “Surely your waste and your desolate places
    and your devastated land—
^(H)surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,
    and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
^20 (I)The children of your bereavement
    will yet say in your ears:
^(J)‘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?
^(K)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,
    ^(L)and raise my signal to the peoples;
^(M)and they shall bring your sons in their bosom,
    and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
^23 (N)Kings shall be your foster fathers,
    and their queens your nursing mothers.
^(O)With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
    and ^(P)lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    ^(Q)those who wait for me ^(R)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:
^(S)“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 (T)I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
    and they shall be drunk ^(U)with their own blood as with wine.
Then all flesh shall know
    that ^(V)I am the Lord your Saviour,
    and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”