7Now Ahaz was the son of Jotham, who was the son of Uzziah. When Ahaz was king of Judah, Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to fight against it. But they were not able to defeat the city.

²Ahaz king of Judah received a message saying, “The armies of Aram and Israel ⁿ have joined together.”

When Ahaz heard this, he and the people were frightened. They shook with fear like trees of the forest blown by the wind.

³Then the Lord told Isaiah, “You and your son Shear-Jashub ⁿ should go and meet Ahaz at the place where the water flows into the upper pool, on the road where people do their laundry. ⁴Tell Ahaz, ‘Be careful. Be calm and don’t worry. Don’t let those two men, Rezin and Pekah son of Remaliah, scare you. Don’t be afraid of their anger or Aram’s anger, because they are like two barely burning sticks that are ready to go out. ⁵They have made plans against you, saying, ⁶“Let’s fight against Judah and tear it apart. We will divide the land for ourselves and make the son of Tabeel the new king of Judah.” ⁷But I, the Lord God, say,

“ ‘Their plan will not succeed;

it will not happen,

⁸because Aram is led by the city of Damascus,

and Damascus is led by its weak king, Rezin.

Within sixty-five years Israel will no longer be a nation.

⁹Israel is led by the city of Samaria,

and Samaria is led by its weak king, the son of Remaliah.

If your faith is not strong,

you will not have strength enough to last.’ ”

Immanuel—God Is with Us

¹⁰Then the Lord spoke to Ahaz again, saying, ¹¹“Ask for a sign from the Lord your God to prove to yourself that these things are true. It may be a sign from as deep as the place of the dead or as high as the heavens.”

¹²But Ahaz said, “I will not ask for a sign or test the Lord.”

Then Isaiah said, “Ahaz, descendant of David, listen carefully! Isn’t it bad enough that you wear out the patience of people? Do you also have to wear out the patience of my God? ¹⁴The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin ⁿ will be pregnant. She will have a son, and she will name him Immanuel. ⁿ ¹⁵He will be eating milk curds and honey when he learns to reject what is evil and to choose what is good. ¹⁶You are afraid of the kings of Israel and Aram now. But before the child learns to choose good and reject evil, the lands of Israel and Aram will be empty. ¹⁷The Lord will bring troubled times to you, your people, and to the people of your father’s family. They will be worse than anything that has happened since Israel separated from Judah. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria to fight against you.

¹⁸“At that time the Lord will whistle for the Egyptians, and they will come like flies from Egypt’s faraway streams. He will call for the Assyrians, and they will come like bees. ¹⁹These enemies will camp in the deep ravines and in the cliffs, by the thornbushes and watering holes. ²⁰The Lord will hire Assyria and use it like a razor to punish Judah. It will be as if the Lord is shaving the hair from Judah’s head and legs and removing Judah’s beard.

²¹“At that time a person will be able to keep only one young cow and two sheep alive. ²²There will be only enough milk for that person to eat milk curds. All who remain in the land will go back to eating just milk curds and honey. ²³In this land there are now vineyards that have a thousand grapevines, which are worth about twenty-five pounds of silver. But these fields will become full of weeds and thorns. ²⁴The land will become wild and useful only as a hunting ground. ²⁵People once worked and grew food on these hills, but at that time people will not go there, because the land will be filled with weeds and thorns. Only sheep and cattle will go to those places.”

Assyria Will Come Soon

8The Lord told me, “Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ²I will gather some men to be reliable witnesses: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.”

³Then I went to the prophetess, and she became pregnant and had a son. The Lord told me, “Name the boy Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, ⁿ ⁴because the king of Assyria will take away all the wealth and possessions of Damascus and Samaria before the boy learns to say ‘my father’ or ‘my mother.’ ”

⁵Again the Lord spoke to me, saying,

⁶“These people refuse to accept

the slow-moving waters of the pool of Shiloah

and are terrified of Rezin

and Pekah son of Remaliah.

⁷So I, the Lord, will bring

the king of Assyria and all his power against them,

like a powerful flood of water from the Euphrates River.

The Assyrians will be like water rising over the banks of the river,

flowing over the land.

⁸That water will flow into Judah and pass through it,

rising to Judah’s throat.

Immanuel, this army will spread its wings like a bird

until it covers your whole country.”

⁹Be broken, all you nations,

and be smashed to pieces.

Listen, all you faraway countries.

Prepare for battle and be smashed to pieces!

¹⁰Make your plans for the fight,

but they will be defeated.

Give orders to your armies,

but they will be useless,

because God is with us.

Warnings to Isaiah

¹¹The Lord spoke to me with his great power and warned me not to follow the lead of the rest of the people. He said,

¹²“People are saying that others make plans against them,

but you should not believe them.

Don’t be afraid of what they fear;

do not dread those things.

¹³But remember that the Lord All-Powerful is holy.

He is the one you should fear;

he is the one you should dread.

¹⁴Then he will be a place of safety for you.

But for the two families of Israel,

he will be like a stone that causes people to stumble,

like a rock that makes them fall.

He will be like a trap for the people of Jerusalem,

and he will catch them in his trap.

¹⁵Many people will fall over this rock.

They will fall and be broken;

they will be trapped and caught.”

¹⁶Make an agreement.

Seal up the teaching while my followers are watching.

¹⁷I will wait for the Lord to help us,

the Lord who is ashamed of the family of Israel.

I will wait for him.

¹⁸I am here, and with me are the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and proofs for the people of Israel from the Lord All-Powerful, who lives on Mount Zion.

¹⁹Some people say, “Ask the mediums and fortune-tellers, who whisper and mutter, what to do.” But I tell you that people should ask their God for help. Why should people who are still alive ask something from the dead? ²⁰You should follow the teachings and the agreement with the Lord. The mediums and fortune-tellers do not speak the word of the Lord, so their words are worth nothing.

²¹People will wander through the land troubled and hungry. When they become hungry, they will become angry and will look up and curse their king and their God. ²²They will look around them at their land and see only trouble, darkness, and awful gloom. And they will be forced into the darkness.

A New Day Is Coming

9But suddenly there will be no more gloom for the land that suffered. In the past God made the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali hang their heads in shame, but in the future those lands will be made great. They will stretch from the road along the Mediterranean Sea to the land beyond the Jordan River and north to Galilee, the land of people who are not Israelites.

²Before those people lived in darkness,

but now they have seen a great light.

They lived in a dark land,

but a light has shined on them.

³God, you have caused the nation to grow

and made the people happy.

And they have shown their happiness to you,

like the joy during harvest time,

like the joy of people

taking what they have won in war.

⁴Like the time you defeated Midian,

you have taken away their heavy load

and the heavy pole from their backs

and the rod the enemy used to punish them.

⁵Every boot that marched in battle

and every uniform stained with blood

has been thrown into the fire.

⁶A child has been born to us;

God has given a son to us.

He will be responsible for leading the people.

His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Powerful God,

Father Who Lives Forever, Prince of Peace.

⁷Power and peace will be in his kingdom

and will continue to grow forever.

He will rule as king on David’s throne

and over David’s kingdom.

He will make it strong

by ruling with justice and goodness

from now on and forever.

The Lord All-Powerful will do this

because of his strong love for his people.

God Will Punish Israel

8The Lord sent a message against the people of Jacob;

it says that God will judge Israel.

⁹Then everyone in Israel, even the leaders in Samaria,

will know that God has sent it.

Those people are proud and brag by saying,

¹⁰“These bricks have fallen,

but we will build again with cut stones.

These small trees have been chopped down,

but we will put great cedars there.”

¹¹But the Lord has brought the enemies of Rezin against them;

he has stirred up their enemies against them.

¹²The Arameans came from the east

and the Philistines from the west,

and they ate up Israel with their armies.

But the Lord was still angry;

his hand was still raised to punish the people.

¹³But the people did not return to the one who had struck them;

they did not follow the Lord All-Powerful.

¹⁴So the Lord cut off Israel’s head and tail,

taking away both the branch and stalk in one day.

¹⁵The elders and important men were the head,

and the prophets who speak lies were the tail.

¹⁶Those who led the people led them in the wrong direction,

and those who followed them were destroyed.

¹⁷So the Lord is not happy with the young people,

nor will he show mercy to the orphans and widows.

All the people are separated from God and are very evil;

they all speak lies.

But the Lord is still angry;

his hand is still raised to strike down the people.

¹⁸Evil is like a small fire.

First, it burns weeds and thorns.

Next, it burns the larger bushes in the forest,

and they all go up in a column of smoke.

¹⁹The Lord All-Powerful is angry,

so the land will be burned.

The people are like fuel for the fire;

no one will try to save his brother or sister.

²⁰People will…

Read in Logos

This passage has been shortened. Keep reading Isaiah 7–12 in Logos

Footnotes

nIsrael Literally, “Ephraim.” Isaiah often uses “Ephraim” to mean all of Israel.
nShear-Jashub This name means “a part of the people will come back.”
nvirgin The Hebrew word means “a young woman.” Often this meant a girl who was not married and had not yet had sexual relations with anyone.
nImmanuel This name means “God is with us.”
nMaher-Shalal-Hash-Baz This name means “there will soon be looting and stealing.”