Isaiah 8
1 The LORD said to me, “Take a large tablet and write on it in ordinary script: ‘Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’”
2 I took trustworthy witnesses for myself: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.
3 I went to the prophetess, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. The LORD said to me, “Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
4 For before the boy knows how to say ‘my father’ and ‘my mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.”
5 The LORD spoke to me again:
6 “This people has rejected the waters of Shiloah, which flow gently, and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah.
7 Therefore the Lord is going to bring against them the mighty, abundant waters of the River—the king of Assyria in all his glory. The River will rise above all its channels and overflow all its banks.
8 It will sweep through Judah, flooding and covering it, reaching up to the neck; its outspread wings will cover the full breadth of your land, Immanuel.”
9 Be shattered, peoples, and be terrified! Listen, all you distant lands! Prepare for war and be terrified; prepare and be terrified!
10 Make a plan, and it will be thwarted; speak a word, and it will not stand, for God is with us.
11 For this is what the LORD said to me when his hand seized me firmly and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people:
12 “Do not call everything a conspiracy that this people calls a conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be terrified.”
13 The LORD of Armies is the one you must regard as holy; he is the one you must fear, he is the one you must dread.
14 He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone to stumble over and a rock that makes them fall, a snare and a trap for those who live in Jerusalem.
15 Many will stumble over them; they will fall and be broken, caught in the snare and taken captive.
16 Preserve the testimony; seal the instruction among my disciples.
17 I will wait for the LORD, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will put my hope in him.
18 Here I am, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of Armies, who dwells on Mount Zion.
19 When they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists, who whisper and mutter”—should not a people consult its God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
20 To the instruction and the testimony! If they do not speak in keeping with this word, there is no dawn for them.
21 They will pass through the land, distressed and hungry. When they are hungry, they will rage and curse their king and their God, looking upward.
22 They will look toward the earth, but see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; they will be driven into deep darkness.
23 But there will be no gloom for the one who was in anguish. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; in the time to come he will honor the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
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