Isaiah 57:14 → Isaiah 40:3

Isaiah 57:14 — "Build it up, build it up, prepare the way (פַּנּוּ־דָרֶךְ, pannu-darekh), take every obstacle out of the way of My people" — reactivates the very imperative of Isaiah 40:3 ("prepare the way of the LORD," פַּנּוּ דֶּרֶךְ) together with the obstacle-removal of 40:4, inside Isaiah's own Book of Comfort. Where 40:3 announces the highway for Yahweh's return-from-exile procession, 57:14 turns the same command toward the covenant community itself — the way is cleared so that My people may come home to their God, the contrite and lowly with whom He dwells (57:15). The clause the Gospels will hear as the herald's cry is thus no isolated oracle but a structuring refrain of Isaiah 40–66: the prophet himself re-fires it, showing the highway is God's own repeated initiative to bring the exiled near. Its terminus is Christ, the Lord who comes on that prepared way (Mark 1:2-3) and Himself becomes the Way (John 14:6) by which the people are gathered home.