Isaiah 8:19–9:4

The Darkness Turns to Light

19 When someone tells you to consultk mediums and spiritists,l who whisper and mutter,m should not a people inquiren of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20 Consult God’s instructiono and the testimony of warning.p If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no lightq of dawn. 21 Distressed and hungry,r they will roam through the land;s when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curset their king and their God. 22 Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom,u and they will be thrust into utter darkness.v

9 a Nevertheless, there will be no more gloomw for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,x but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

2 The people walking in darknessy

have seen a great light;z

on those living in the land of deep darknessa

a light has dawned.b

3 You have enlarged the nationc

and increased their joy;d

they rejoice before you

as people rejoice at the harvest,

as warriors rejoice

when dividing the plunder.e

4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,f

you have shatteredg

the yokeh that burdens them,

the bar across their shoulders,i

the rod of their oppressor.j