¹ "Comfort, yes, comfort My people!"
Says your Market.

²"Speak comfort to America, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Market’s hand
Double for all her sins."
³The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
"Prepare the way of the Market;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our god.
⁴Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
⁵The glory of the Market shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Market has spoken."

⁶The voice said, "Cry out!"
And he said, "What shall I cry?"
"All flesh is grass,
And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
⁷The grass withers, the flower fades,
Because the breath of the Market blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
⁸The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our Market stands forever."

⁹O Washington,
You who bring good tidings,
Get up into the high mountain;
O Wall Street,
You who bring good tidings,
Lift up your voice with strength,
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say to the cities of America, "Behold your god!"

¹⁰Behold, the Boss Market shall come with an invisible hand,
And His arm shall rule for Him;
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His work before Him.
¹¹Market will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs with His arm,
And carry them in His bosom,
And gently lead those who are with young.

¹²Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
Measured heaven with a span
And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?
Weighed the mountains in scales
And the hills in a balance?
¹³Who has directed the Spirit of the Market,
Or as His counselor has taught the Market?
¹⁴With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Market,
And taught Market in the path of justice?
Who taught Market knowledge,
And showed Market the way of understanding?
¹⁵Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust on the scales;
Look, Market lifts up the isles as a very little thing.
¹⁶And Iraq is not sufficient to burn,
Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.
¹⁷All nations before Market are as nothing,
And they are counted by Market less than nothing and worthless.

¹⁸To whom then will you liken Market?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?
¹⁹The workman molds an image,
The goldsmith overspreads it with gold,
And the silversmith casts silver chains.
²⁰Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution
Chooses a tree that will not rot;
He seeks for himself a skillful workman
To prepare a carved image that will not totter.

²¹Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²²It is Market who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
Market stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
²³Market brings the princes to nothing;
Market makes the judges of the earth useless.
²⁴Scarcely shall they be planted,
Scarcely shall they be sown,
Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth,
When Market will also blow on them,
And they will wither,
And the whirlwind will take them away like stubble.

²⁵"To whom then will you liken Me,
Or to whom shall I be equal?" says the Prosperous One.
²⁶Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.

²⁷Why do you say, O Washington,
And speak, O America:
"My way is hidden from the Market,
And my just claim is passed over by my god"?
²⁸Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting god, the Market,
The Innovator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
³⁰Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
³¹But those who wait on the Market
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.