Isaiah 8

¹ The LORD said to me, "Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz."

² So I called reliable witnesses—Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah—to attest for me.

³ Then I was intimate with the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the LORD said to me, "Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

⁴ For before the boy knows how to say 'My father' or 'My mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off before the king of Assyria."

⁵ The LORD spoke to me again:

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

⁷ therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—
the king of Assyria with all his glory.
It will overflow all its channels
and run over all its banks.

⁸ It will sweep on into Judah, swirling over it,
passing through and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover
the breadth of your land, Immanuel!"

⁹ Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered!
Listen, all you distant lands.
Arm yourselves and be shattered!
Arm yourselves and be shattered!

¹⁰ Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted;
propose your plan, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.

¹¹ This is what the LORD said to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to walk in the way of this people:

¹² "Do not call conspiracy
everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.

¹³ The LORD of Hosts 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 that causes stumbling
and a rock that makes them fall.
For the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.

¹⁵ Many of them will stumble;
they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured.

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

¹⁷ I will wait for the LORD,
who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.

¹⁸ Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.

¹⁹ When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people consult their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

²⁰ Consult God's instruction and the testimony! If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

²¹ Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.

²² Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.