2. Recitative Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God; speak ye comfortably to Jerusaelem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. 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.
Isaiah XL, 1-3 3. Air Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low: the crooked straight and the rough places plain. Isaiah XL, 4