Isaiah 40:3
New International Version
A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

New Living Translation
Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!

English Standard Version
A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Berean Standard Bible
A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

King James Bible
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

New King James Version
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.

New American Standard Bible
The voice of one calling out, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

NASB 1995
A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

NASB 1977
A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

Legacy Standard Bible
A voice is calling, “Prepare the way for Yahweh in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

Amplified Bible
A voice of one is calling out, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness [remove the obstacles]; Make straight and smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

Christian Standard Bible
A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

American Standard Version
The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah; make level in the desert a highway for our God.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
The voice that cried out in the wilderness: “Return to the road for LORD JEHOVAH and straighten in the plain the street for our God

Brenton Septuagint Translation
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.

Contemporary English Version
Someone is shouting: "Clear a path in the desert! Make a straight road for the LORD our God.

Douay-Rheims Bible
The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.

English Revised Version
The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
A voice cries out in the desert: "Clear a way for the LORD. Make a straight highway in the wilderness for our God.

Good News Translation
A voice cries out, "Prepare in the wilderness a road for the LORD! Clear the way in the desert for our God!

International Standard Version
A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; and in the desert a straight highway for our God.'

JPS Tanakh 1917
Hark! one calleth: 'Clear ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, Make plain in the desert A highway for our God.

Literal Standard Version
A voice is crying in a wilderness: “Prepare the way of YHWH, | Make straight in a desert a highway for our God.

Majority Standard Bible
A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

New American Bible
A voice proclaims: In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!

NET Bible
A voice cries out, "In the wilderness clear a way for the LORD; construct in the desert a road for our God.

New Revised Standard Version
A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

New Heart English Bible
The voice of one who calls out in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the LORD. Make his roads straight.

Webster's Bible Translation
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

World English Bible
The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.

Young's Literal Translation
A voice is crying -- in a wilderness -- Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, Make straight in a desert a highway to our God.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Prepare the Way for the LORD
2“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.” 3A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain.…

Cross References
Matthew 3:3
This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'"

Mark 1:3
"A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'"

Luke 3:4
as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: "A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.

John 1:23
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: "I am a voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'"

Psalm 68:4
Sing to God! Sing praises to His name. Exalt Him who rides on the clouds--His name is the LORD--and rejoice before Him.

Isaiah 11:16
There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

Isaiah 35:8
And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it--only those who walk in the Way--and fools will not stray onto it.


Treasury of Scripture

The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

the voice

Matthew 3:1-3
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, …

Mark 1:2-5
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee…

Luke 3:2-6
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness…

prepare

Isaiah 35:8
And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Isaiah 57:14
And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people.

Isaiah 62:10,11
Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people…

make

Isaiah 11:15,16
And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod…

Isaiah 43:19
Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 49:11
And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.

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Isaiah 40
1. The promulgation of the Gospel
3. The preaching of John Baptist foretold
9. The preaching of the apostles foretold
12. The prophet, by the omnipotence of God
18. And his incomparableness
26. Comforts the people.














(3) The voice of him that crieth . . .--The laws of Hebrew parallelism require a different punctuation: A voice of one crying, In the wilderness, prepare ye . . . The passage is memorable as having been deliberately taken by the Baptist as defining his own mission (John 1:23). As here the herald is not named, so he was content to efface himself--to be a voice or nothing. The image is drawn from the march of Eastern kings, who often boast, as in the Assyrian inscriptions of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal (Records of the Past, i. 95, vii. 64), of the roads they have made in trackless deserts. The wilderness is that which lay between the Euphrates and Judah, the journey of the exiles through it reminding the prophet of the older wanderings in the wilderness of Sin (Psalm 68:7; Judges 5:4). The words are an echo of the earlier thought of Isaiah 35:8. We are left to conjecture to whom the command is addressed: tribes of the desert, angelic ministers, kings and rulers--the very vagueness giving a grand universality. So, again, we are not told whether the "way of Jehovah" is that on which He comes to meet His people, or on which He goes before and guides them. The analogy of the marches of the Exodus makes the latter view the more probable.

Verse 3. - The voice of him that crieth; rather, the voice of one that crieth. A voice sounds in the prophet's ear, crying to repentance. For God to come down on earth, for his glory to be revealed in any signal way, by the restoration of a nation, or the revelation of himself in Christ, or the final establishment of his kingdom, the "way" must be first "prepared" for him. The hearts of the disobedient must be turned to the wisdom of the just. In the wilderness; either, "the wilderness of this world" (Kay), or "the wilderness separating Babylonia from Palestine" (Delitzsch), in a part of which John the Baptist afterwards preached. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. The "way of the Lord" is "the way of holiness" (Isaiah 35:8). There is one only mode of "preparing" it - the mode adopted by John Baptist (Matthew 3:2-12), the mode pointed out by the angel who announced him (Luke 1:17), the mode insisted on in the Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent. The voice enjoins on the prophets of the captive nation to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming manifestation of God.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
A voice
ק֣וֹל (qō·wl)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 6963: A voice, sound

of one calling:
קוֹרֵ֔א (qō·w·rê)
Verb - Qal - Participle - masculine singular
Strong's 7121: To call, proclaim, read

“Prepare
פַּנּ֖וּ (pan·nū)
Verb - Piel - Imperative - masculine plural
Strong's 6437: To turn, to face, appear, look

the way
דֶּ֣רֶךְ (de·reḵ)
Noun - common singular construct
Strong's 1870: A road, a course of life, mode of action

for the LORD
יְהוָ֑ה (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel

in the wilderness;
בַּמִּדְבָּ֕ר (bam·miḏ·bār)
Preposition-b, Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 4057: A pasture, a desert, speech

make a straight
יַשְּׁרוּ֙ (yaš·šə·rū)
Verb - Piel - Imperative - masculine plural
Strong's 3474: To be straight, even, to be, right, pleasant, prosperous

highway
מְסִלָּ֖ה (mə·sil·lāh)
Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 4546: A thoroughfare, a viaduct, a staircase

for our God
לֵאלֹהֵֽינוּ׃ (lê·lō·hê·nū)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine plural construct | first person common plural
Strong's 430: gods -- the supreme God, magistrates, a superlative

in the desert.
בָּעֲרָבָ֔ה (bā·‘ă·rā·ḇāh)
Preposition-b, Article | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 6160: Arabah -- a steppe or desert plain, also a desert valley running south from the Sea of Galilee


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OT Prophets: Isaiah 40:3 The voice of one who calls out (Isa Isi Is)
Isaiah 40:2
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