Isaiah 8

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

²And I will call in Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah as reliable witnesses for me."

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

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

⁵The 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,

⁷therefore the Lord is about to bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the River - the king of Assyria with all his pomp. It will overflow all its channels, run over all its banks

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

⁹Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Prepare for battle, and be shattered!

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

¹¹The LORD spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people. He said:

¹²"Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it.

¹³The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread,

¹⁴and he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.

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

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

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

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

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

²⁰To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

²¹Distressed 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.

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