Here is a really engaging paraphrase of Isaiah 40.

Excerpt from the reading:

An arm around the shoulder. A shoulder to cry on.
There, there, Jerusalem. Take comfort, Jerusalem.
Your troubles are over, your wrongs forgiven,
your sins paid for twice over.

Now, listen. Do you hear it? Do you hear the voice?
The Lord is coming. So prepare the Wilderness Way.
Make straight the desert roads.
Fill in the valleys.
Knock down the mountains.
Plane the roads and make a plain.
A highway for the Lord.

Why?
To reveal God's glory, that's why.
So that everyone will see it, that's why.
And so everyone will know that what he says lasts forever.

The voice tells me to cry.
And I say "What? What shall I cry?"
Flesh is like grass, that's what.
Like a field full of flowers, that's what.
Withered and gone.
Flowered and faded.
Blown away by the God's breath,
whose every word lasts forever.

So climb that mountain, Zion.
Cling to those peaks, Jerusalem...

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