Isaiah 7–12

The Sign to Ahaz

7This happened in the days of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah. Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went^a up to Jerusalem for warfare against it,^b but he was not able to fight against it.^{c 2}When it was reported to the house of David, saying “Aram stands by Ephraim,” his heart and the heart of his people shook like the shaking of the trees of the forest because of the wind.

³Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-Jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the washer’s field. ⁴And you must say to him, ‘Take heed and be quiet! You must not fear, and your heart must not be faint because of these two stumps of smoldering firebrands, because of the fierce anger of^d Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. ⁵Because Aram has plotted evil against you with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying, ⁶“Let us go up against Judah and let us tear her apart, and let us lay it open and so bring it unto ourselves,^e and let us install the son of Tabeel as king in her midst.” ⁷Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass. ⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin, and in sixty-five years from now Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. ⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not believe then you will not endure.” ’ ”

¹⁰And Yahweh continued to speak to Ahaz, saying, ¹¹“Ask for a sign for yourself from Yahweh God; make it deep as Sheol or make it high as above.” ¹²But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put Yahweh to the test.”

¹³Then he said, “Hear, house of David! Is it too little for you to make men weary, that you should also make my God weary? ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you^f a sign. Look! the virgin^g is with child and she is about to give birth to a son, and she shall call his name ‘God with us.’ ¹⁵He shall eat curds and honey until he knows to reject the evil and to choose the good. ¹⁶For before the boy knows to reject the evil and to choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be abandoned.^h

That Day

¹⁷“Yahweh will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your ancestorⁱ days that have not come since the day Ephraim departed from Judah: the king of Assyria.” ¹⁸And this shall happen: On that day, Yahweh will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the stream of Egypt and the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹And all of them will come and settle in the rivers of the cliffs and in the clefts of the rocks and on all of the thornbushes and watering places. ²⁰On that day, the Lord will shave the head and the hair of the feet with a razor of the one hired from beyond the river—with the king of Assyria—and it will even take off the beard. ²¹And this shall happen: on that day, a young man will keep a young cow of the herd and two sheep alive. ²²And this shall happen: because of the abundance of milk production, he will eat curds, for every one that is left in the midst of the land will eat curds and honey. ²³And this shall happen on that day: Every place where there are a thousand vines^j for a thousand silver pieces will become briers,^k and it will be thornbushes.^{l 24}One will go there with arrows and bow, for all of the land will be briers^m and thornbushes.^{n 25}And as for all of the hills that they hoed with the hoe, you will not go there, for fear of briers^o and thornbushes.^p And it will become like pastureland for cattle and overtrodden land for sheep.

Signs of the Assyrian Invasion

8Then Yahweh said to me, “Take yourself a large tablet and write on it with a common stylus pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ²And I will require reliable witnesses as a witness for me: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.” ³And I approached the prophetess, and she conceived, and she gave birth to a son. And Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ⁴For before the boy knows to call ‘my father’ and ‘my mother,’ one will carry away the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria.”

Shiloah Waters and Euphrates Flood

⁵And Yahweh continued to speak to me again, saying,

⁶“Because this people has refused the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah, ⁷therefore look! The Lord is bringing up the waters of the great and mighty river against them, the king of Assyria and all his glory.

And he will rise above all his channels,

and he will flow over all his banks.

⁸And he will sweep into Judah;

he will overflow and he will flood up to the neck.

He will reach, and he will spread his wings out over your entire land,^a God with us.”

⁹Be broken, you peoples, and be dismayed.

And listen, all distant parts of the earth;

gird yourselves and be dismayed;

gird yourselves and be dismayed!

¹⁰Make a plan,^b but it will be frustrated!

Speak a word, but it will not stand,

for God is with us!

Wait for Yahweh

¹¹For Yahweh said this to me while his hand weighed heavily on me,^c

and he warned me not to walk^d in the way of this people, saying,

¹²“You must not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy,

and you must not share its fear,^e and you must not be in dread.

¹³You shall regard Yahweh of hosts as holy,

and he is your^f fear, and he is your dread.

¹⁴And he will become like a sanctuary and a stumbling-stone,

and like a stumbling-rock for the two houses of Israel,

like a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁵And many shall stumble among them,

and they shall fall and they shall be broken,

and they shall be ensnared and they shall be caught.”

¹⁶Bind up the testimony;

seal the teaching among my disciples.

¹⁷And I will wait for Yahweh,

who hides his face from the house of Jacob,

and I will await him.

¹⁸Look! I and the children whom Yahweh has given to me are like signs and portents in Israel from Yahweh of hosts, the one who dwells on the mountain of Zion. ¹⁹Now if they tell you, “Consult the ghosts and the spirits, those who chirp and those who mutter. Should not a people consult its gods, the dead on behalf of the living, ²⁰for teaching and for testimony?” surely they who speak like this have no dawn.^g

²¹And it^h will pass through itⁱ distressed and hungry, and this shall happen: when it is hungry, it will be enraged, and it will curse its king and its gods,^j and it will face upward ²²or look to the earth. But look! Distress and darkness, the gloom of affliction! And it will be thrust into darkness!

New Light: The Birth of a King

9^a But there will be no gloom for those who were in distress.^b

In former times he^c treated the land of Zebulun and Naphtali with contempt, but in the future he will honor the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

²The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

light has shined on those who lived in a land of darkness.

³You have made the nation numerous;

you have not^d made the joy great.

They rejoice in your presence as with joy at the harvest,

as they rejoice when they divide plunder.

⁴For you have shattered the yoke of its burden

and the stick of its shoulder,

the rod of its oppressor, on^e the day of Midian.

⁵For every boot that marches and shakes the earth^f

and garment rolled in blood

will^g be for burning—fire fuel.

⁶For a child has been born for us;

a son has been given to us.

And the dominion will be on his shoulder,

and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

⁷His dominion will grow continually,

and to peace there will be no end^h

onⁱ the throne of David and over^j his kingdom,

to establish it^k and sustain it

with justice and righteousness

now and forever.

The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

Yahweh’s Anger against Arrogance

⁸The Lord has sent out a word against Jacob,

and it fell on Israel.

⁹And all of the people knew it,

Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria

in pride and arrogance of heart, saying,

¹⁰“The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stone.

The sycamore-fig trees were felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”

¹¹So Yahweh strengthened the adversaries of Rezin^l against him,

and he provoked his enemies—

¹²Aram from the east

and Philistines^m from the west—

and they devoured Israel with the whole mouth.

He has not turned away his anger in all of this,

and his hand is still stretched out.

¹³And the people did not turn to the one who struck it,ⁿ

and they did not seek Yahweh of hosts.

¹⁴So Yahweh cut off head and tail from Israel,

palm branch and reed in one day.

¹⁵Elders^o and the respectable^p are the head,

and prophets^q who teach lies^r are the tail.

¹⁶And the leaders of this people were misleading them,

and those who were led were confused.

¹⁷Therefore the Lord did not rejoice over its young men,

and he did not have compassion on its orphans and widows,

for everyone was godless and an evildoer,

and every mouth was speaking folly.

In all of this his anger did not turn away,

and still his hand is stretched out.

¹⁸For wickedness burned like fire;

it consumed brier and thorn.

And it kindled the thickets of the forest,

and they swirled upward in a column of smoke.

¹⁹The land was burned through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts,

and the people became like fire fuel.

People had no compassion toward each other.^s

²⁰They devoured on the right but still were hungry

and devoured on the left but they were not satisfied.

Each one devoured the flesh of his arm,

²¹Manasseh devoured Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh;

together they were against Judah.

In all of this his anger has not turned away,

and still his hand is stretched out.

Woes on the Wicked

10Ah! Those who decree decrees of evil,

and writers who have written harm,

²to guide the needy away from legal claims,^a

and to rob the justice from the poor of my people,

to make widows their spoil;

and they plunder orphans.

³And what will you do at the…