Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment; and those who dwell therein shall die in the same way: but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
⛓ Read Isaiah 51 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion5
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Isaiah: 'the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment... but my salvation will be forever.' The passing of heaven and earth set against an everlasting divine word/salvation is exactly Jesus' antithesis. Strong recurrence within Isaiah of the perishing-cosmos vs. abiding-word motif.
High confidence'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away' draws on Isaiah 51:6, 'the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth wear out like a garment... but my salvation will be forever.' The contrast between the perishing cosmos and the enduring divine word is distinctively Isaianic and high in volume.
High confidence‘They all will grow old like a garment’ (v. 11) shares the exact heavens-wear-out-like-a-garment versus God-endures contrast of Isa 51:6 — the same cosmic-impermanence topos that stands behind the Ps 102 citation. Medium volume on the ‘garment’ simile; strong thematic coherence.
Medium confidence'The heavens shall vanish... but my salvation shall be forever' — direct background for 'until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter shall pass from the law.'
Medium confidenceIsaiah 51:6, 'the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out... but my salvation will be forever,' parallels the passing of heaven and earth set against the permanence of Jesus' word.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'The things which are seen are temporal, but the unseen are eternal' echoes Isaiah's contrast that the heavens and earth 'will vanish away' while God's salvation 'shall be forever.' The transient-visible versus everlasting antithesis aligns well, giving moderate coherence.
Medium confidence'The heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment… but my salvation will be forever' frames the dissolution-and-enduring-righteousness contrast Peter draws.
Medium confidence