Isaiah 7:1–8:22

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!