Isaiah 8

1Then Yahweh said to me, “Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it with an ordinary stylus: ‘Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’”

2And I will take for myself faithful witnesses: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.

3So I went near to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.”

4For before the boy knows how to cry, ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.

5Yahweh spoke to me again, saying,

6Because this people has rejected the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

7Therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many—the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks.

8It will sweep on into Judah; it will overflow and pass through; it will reach up to the neck. And the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

9Be shattered, O peoples, and be broken; listen, all distant parts of the earth. Strap yourselves on for battle, and be broken; strap yourselves on for battle, and be broken.

10Make a plan, and it will be thwarted; speak a word, and it will not stand, for God is with us.

11For thus Yahweh said to me with a strong hand, warning me not to walk in the way of this people, saying:

12Do not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.

13Yahweh of hosts—you shall regard him as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

14And he will become a sanctuary, but a stone to strike against and a rock to stumble over for both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitant of Jerusalem.

15And many among them will stumble; they will fall and be broken; they will be snared and captured.

16Bind up the testimony; seal the instruction among my disciples.

17And I will wait for Yahweh, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.

18Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from Yahweh of Armies, who dwells on Mount Zion.

19And when they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists who chirp and mutter,” should not a people consult its God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?

20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, there is no dawn for them.

21And he will pass through it, hard-pressed and hungry; and when he is hungry, he will become enraged and curse his king and his God, and he will turn upward.

22And he will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and thick darkness will be driven away.

23For there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought contempt on the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.