Isaiah 8

1The LORD said to me, “Get yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters, ‘Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’ 2I will have trustworthy witnesses confirm it for me, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.” 3I went in to the prophetess, and she became pregnant and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Give him the name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 4For before the child can say ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be hauled away before the king of Assyria.”

5The LORD spoke to me once more: 6“This people has turned away from the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and takes delight in Rezin and the son of Remaliah. 7So now the Lord is about to bring against them the waters of the River, strong and plentiful: the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will rise over all its channels and spill over all its banks. 8It will surge on into Judah, flooding and passing through until it reaches the neck. Its outspread wings will cover the whole width of your land, O Immanuel.”

9Do your worst, you peoples, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands! Arm for war, and be shattered; arm for war, and be shattered! 10Draw up your plans; they will be undone. Give the order; it will not stand. For God is with us.

11For this is what the LORD said to me while his hand held me hard, warning me not to follow the way of this people: 12“Do not call something a plot just because this people calls it a plot. What frightens them must not frighten you; do not tremble at it. 13The LORD of Armies is the one you must treat as holy. Let him be the one you fear, let him be the one who makes you tremble. 14He will be a holy place of refuge, but also a stone that people strike against and a rock they trip over, for both houses of Israel; a trap and a snare for those who live in Jerusalem. 15Many will stumble on them and fall; they will be broken, caught in the snare, and carried off.”

16Wrap up the testimony, and put a seal on the instruction among my disciples. 17I will wait on the LORD while he keeps his face hidden from the house of Jacob; I will look to him in hope. 18Here I am with the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and omens in Israel from the LORD of Armies, who makes his home on Mount Zion.

19When they tell you, “Seek out the ghosts and the familiar spirits that chirp and moan,” should a people not seek its own God? Should they go to the dead on behalf of the living? 20To the instruction and the testimony! Those who do not speak in keeping with this word have no dawn before them. 21They will roam through the land, worn down and hungry. When hunger gnaws at them, they will rage and curse their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. 22They will stare at the ground, and there will be trouble and darkness, the dimness of anguish; into thick darkness they are driven.