Isaiah 6-8

Isaiah 6

¹In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

²Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

³And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

⁴And the foundations of the thresholds were moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

⁵Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

⁶Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

⁷and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

⁸And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me.

⁹And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

¹⁰Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.

¹¹Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste,

¹²and the LORD have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.

¹³And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is the stock thereof.

Isaiah 7

¹And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it; but could not prevail against it.

²And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest are moved with the wind.

³Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller’s field;

⁴and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither let thine heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

⁵Because Syria hath counselled evil against thee, Ephraim also, and the son of Remaliah, saying,

⁶Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set up a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeel:

⁷thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

⁸For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin: and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken in pieces, that it be not a people:

⁹and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

¹⁰And the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

¹¹Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

¹²But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.

¹³And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also?

¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

¹⁵Butter and honey shall he eat, when he knoweth to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

¹⁶For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken.

¹⁷The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

¹⁸And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

¹⁹And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all pastures.

²⁰In that day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, which is in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

²¹And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

²²and it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst of the land.

²³And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, shall even be for briers and thorns.

²⁴With arrows and with bow shall one come thither; because all the land shall be briers and thorns.

²⁵And all the hills that were digged with the mattock; thou shalt not come thither for fear of briers and thorns, but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of sheep.

Isaiah 8

¹And the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of a man, For Maher-shalal-hash-baz;

²and I will take unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.

³And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

⁴For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.

⁵And the LORD spake unto me yet again, saying,

⁶Forasmuch as this people hath refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son;

⁷now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the River, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:

⁸and he shall sweep onward into Judah; he shall overflow and pass through; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.

⁹Make an uproar; O ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.

¹⁰Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.

¹¹For the LORD spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,

¹²Say ye not, A conspiracy, concerning all whereof this people shall say, A conspiracy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread thereof.

¹³The LORD of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

¹⁴And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁵And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.

¹⁶Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.

¹⁷And I will wait for the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.

¹⁸Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

¹⁹And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?

²⁰To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.

²¹And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse by their king and by their God, and turn their faces upward.

²²and they shall look unto the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness they shall be driven away.