Isaiah 8:19–9:1

¹⁹People will say to you, “Ask for help from the mediums 

and the fortunetellers, who whisper and mutter.” 

Shouldn’t people ask their God for help instead? 

Why should they ask the dead to help the living? 

²⁰They should go to the teachings and to the written instructions. 

If people don’t speak these words, 

it is because it doesn’t dawn on them. 

²¹They will pass through the land when they are hard-pressed and hungry. 

When they are hungry, they will be furious. 

Then they will look up, cursing their king and God. 

²²They will look at the earth and see only distress and gloom. 

They will go in anguish and be forced into darkness. 

9TH CHAPTER^a

¹But there will be no more gloom 

for the land that is in distress. 

God humbled the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali in earlier times. 

But in the future he will bring glory to the road by the sea, 

to the land across the Jordan River, 

to Galilee, where foreigners live.