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² Why was no one there when I came?
   Why did no one answer when I called?
Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem?
   Or have I no power to deliver?
By my rebuke I dry up the sea,
   I make the rivers a desert;
their fish stink for lack of water,
   and die of thirst.^*
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness,
   and make sackcloth their covering.

The Servant’s Humiliation and Vindication

⁴ The Lord God has given me
   the tongue of a teacher,^*
that I may know how to sustain
   the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
   wakens my ear
   to listen as those who are taught.
⁵ The Lord God has opened my ear,
   and I was not rebellious,
   I did not turn backwards.
⁶ I gave my back to those who struck me,
   and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
   from insult and spitting.

⁷ The Lord God helps me;
   therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
   and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
⁸   he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
   Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
   Let them confront me.
⁹ It is the Lord God who helps me;
   who will declare me guilty?
All of them will wear out like a garment;
   the moth will eat them up.