IN THE YEAR THAT KING UZZIAH DIED
I SAW ALSO
THE LORD
SITTING UPON A THRONE,
HIGH AND LIFTED UP,
AND HIS TRAIN FILLED THE TEMPLE.
Above it stood the seraphims:
each one had six wings;
with twain he covered his face,
and with twain he covered his feet,
and with twain he did fly.
And one cried unto another,
and said,
Holy, holy, holy,
is the LORD of hosts:
the whole earth is full of his glory.
And the posts of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried,
and the house was filled with smoke.
Then said I,
Woe is me!
for I am undone;
because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:
for mine eyes have seen the King,
the LORD of hosts.
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me,
having a live coal in his hand,
which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
And he laid it upon my mouth,
and said,
Lo,
this hath touched thy lips;
and thine iniquity is taken away,
and thy sin purged.
Also I heard the voice of the Lord,
saying,
Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?
Then said I,
Here am I;
send me.
And he said,
Go,
and tell this people,
Hear ye indeed,
but understand not;
and see ye indeed,
but perceive not.
Make the heart of this people fat,
and make their ears heavy,
and shut their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and convert,
and be healed.
Then said I,
Lord, how long?
And he answered,
Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,
and the houses without man,
and the land be utterly desolate,
And the LORD have removed men far away,
and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
But yet in it shall be a tenth,
and it shall return,
and shall be eaten:
as a teil tree,
and as an oak,
whose substance is in them,
when they cast their leaves:
so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE DAYS OF AHAZ
the son of Jotham,
the son of Uzziah,
king of Judah,
that Rezin the king of Syria,
and Pekah the son of Remaliah,
king of Israel,
went up toward Jerusalem to war against it,
but could not prevail against it.
And it was told the house of David,
saying,
Syria is confederate with Ephraim.
And his heart was moved,
and the heart of his people,
as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Then said the LORD unto Isaiah,
Go forth now to meet Ahaz,
thou,
and Shearjashub thy son,
at the end of the conduit of the upper pool
in the highway of the fuller’s field;
And say unto him,
Take heed,
and be quiet;
fear not,
neither be fainthearted
for the two tails of these smoking firebrands,
for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria,
and of the son of Remaliah.
Because Syria,
Ephraim,
and the son of Remaliah,
have taken evil counsel against thee,
saying,
Let us go up against Judah,
and vex it,
and let us make a breach therein for us,
and set a king in the midst of it,
even the son of Tabeal:
THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD,
It shall not stand,
neither shall it come to pass.
For the head of Syria is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin;
and within threescore and five years
shall Ephraim be broken,
that it be not a people.
And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son.
If ye will not believe,
surely ye shall not be established.
MOREOVER THE LORD SPAKE AGAIN
UNTO AHAZ,
saying,
Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God;
ask it either in the depth,
or in the height above.
But Ahaz said,
I will not ask,
neither will I tempt the LORD.
And he said,
Hear ye now,
O house of David;
Is it a small thing for you to weary men,
but will ye weary my God also?
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold,
a virgin shall conceive,
and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel.
Butter and honey shall he eat,
that he may know to refuse the evil,
and choose the good.
For before the child shall know
to refuse the evil,
and choose the good,
the land that thou abhorrest
shall be forsaken of both her kings.
The LORD shall bring upon thee,
and upon thy people,
and upon thy father’s house,
days that have not come,
from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah;
even the king of Assyria.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY,
that the LORD shall hiss for the fly
that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt,
and for the bee
that is in the land of Assyria.
And they shall come,
and shall rest all of them
in the desolate valleys,
and in the holes of the rocks,
and upon all thorns,
and upon all bushes.
In the same day shall the Lord shave
with a razor that is hired,
namely,
by them beyond the river,
by the king of Assyria,
the head,
and the hair of the feet:
and it shall also consume the beard.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY,
that a man shall nourish a young cow,
and two sheep;
And it shall come to pass,
for the abundance of milk
that they shall give he shall eat butter:
for butter and honey
shall every one eat that is left in the land.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY,
that every place shall be,
where there were a thousand vines
at a thousand silverlings,
it shall even be for briers and thorns.
With arrows and with bows shall men come thither;
because all the land shall become briers and thorns.
And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock,
there shall not come thither
the fear of briers and thorns:
but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen,
and for the treading of lesser cattle.
MOREOVER THE LORD SAID UNTO ME,
Take thee a great roll,
and write in it with a man’s pen
concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.
And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record,
Uriah the priest,
and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.
And I went unto the prophetess;
and she conceived,
and bare a son.
THEN SAID THE LORD TO ME,
Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.
For before the child shall have knowledge to cry,
My father,
and my mother,
the riches of Damascus
and the spoil of Samaria
shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
THE LORD SPAKE ALSO UNTO ME AGAIN,
saying,
Forasmuch as this people refuseth
the waters of Shiloah
that go softly,
and rejoice in Rezin
and Remaliah’s son;
Now therefore,
behold,
the Lord bringeth up upon them
the waters of the river,
strong and many,
even the king of Assyria,
and all his glory:
and he shall come up over all his channels,
and go over all his banks:
And he shall pass through Judah;
he shall overflow and go over,
he shall reach even to the neck;
and the stretching out of his wings
shall fill the breadth of thy land,
O Immanuel.
Associate yourselves,
O ye people,
and ye shall be broken in pieces;
and give ear,
all ye of far countries:
gird yourselves,
and ye shall be broken in pieces;
gird yourselves,
and ye shall be broken in pieces.
Take counsel together,
and it shall come to nought;
speak the word,
and it shall not stand:
for God is with us.
FOR THE LORD SPAKE THUS TO ME
WITH A STRONG HAND,
and instructed me that I should not walk
in the way of this people,
saying,
Say ye not,
A confederacy,
to all them to whom this people shall say,
A confederacy;
neither fear ye their fear,
nor be afraid.
Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself;
and let him be your fear,
and let him be your dread.
And he shall be for a sanctuary;
but for a stone of stumbling
and for a rock of offence
to both the houses of Israel,
for a gin
and for a snare
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And many among them shall stumble,
and fall,
and be broken,
and be snared,
and be taken.
Bind up the testimony,
seal the law among my disciples.
And I will wait upon the LORD,
that hideth his face from the house of Jacob,
and I will look for him.
Behold,
I and the children whom the LORD hath given me
are for signs and for wonders
in Israel from the LORD of hosts,
which dwelleth in mount Zion.
And when they shall say unto you,
Seek unto them that have familiar spirits,
and unto wizards that peep,
and that mutter:
should not a people seek unto their God?
for the living to the dead?
To the law and to the testimony:
if they speak not according to this word,
it is because there is no light in them.
And they shall pass through it,
hardly bestead and hungry:
and it shall come to pass,
that when they shall be hungry,
they shall fret themselves,
and curse their king and their God,
and look upward.
And they shall look unto the earth;
and behold trouble and darkness,
dimness of anguish;
and they shall be driven to darkness.
Nevertheless the dimness
shall not be such as was in her vexation,
when at the first he lightly afflicted
the land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphtali,
and afterward did more grievously afflict her
by the way of the sea,
beyond Jordan,
in Galilee of the nations.
The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light:
they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,
upon them hath the light shined.
Thou hast multiplied the nation,
and not increased the joy:
they joy before thee
according to the joy in harvest,
and as men rejoice
when they divide the spoil.
For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden,
and the staff of his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
as in the day of Midian.
For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise,
and garments rolled in blood;
but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called
Wonderful,
Counsellor,
The mighty God,
The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government
and peace
there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom,
to order it,
and to establish it with judgment
and with justice
from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
THE LORD SENT A WORD INTO JACOB,
AND IT HATH LIGHTED UPON ISRAEL.
And all the people shall know,
even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria,
that say in the pride and stoutness of heart,
The bricks are fallen down,
but we will build with hewn stones:
the sycomores are cut down,
but we will change them into cedars.
Therefore the LORD shall set up
the adversaries of Rezin against him,
and join his enemies together;
The Syrians before,
and the Philistines behind;
and they shall devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them,
neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel
head and tail,
branch and rush,
in one day.
The ancient and honourable,
he is the head;
and the prophet that teacheth lies,
he is the tail.
For the leaders of this people cause them to err;
and they that are led of them are destroyed.
Therefore the Lord shall have no joy
in their young men,
neither shall have mercy
on their fatherless and widows:
for every one is an hypocrite
and an evildoer,
and every mouth speaketh folly.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
For wickedness burneth as the fire:
it shall devour the briers and thorns,
and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest,
and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts
is the land darkened,
and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire:
no man shall spare his brother.
And he shall snatch on the right hand,
and be hungry;
and he shall eat on the left hand,
and they shall not be satisfied:
they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:
Manasseh,
Ephraim;
and Ephraim,
Manasseh:
and they together shall be against Judah.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
WOE UNTO THEM THAT DECREE
UNRIGHTEOUS DECREES,
and that write grievousness
which they have prescribed;
To turn aside the needy from judgment,
and to take away the right from the poor of my people,
that widows may be their prey,
and that they may rob the fatherless!
And what will ye do in the day of visitation,
and in the desolation which shall come from far?
to whom will ye flee for help?
and where will ye leave your glory?
Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners,
and they shall fall under the slain.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
O Assyrian,
the rod of mine anger,
and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
I will send him against an hypocritical nation,
and against the people of my wrath
will I give him a charge,
to take the spoil,
and to take the prey,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Howbeit he meaneth not so,
neither doth his heart think so;
but it is in his heart to destroy
and cut off nations not a few.
For he saith,
Are not my princes altogether kings?
Is not Calno as Carchemish?
is not Hamath as Arpad?
is not Samaria as Damascus?
As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols,
and whose graven images did excel them
of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
Shall I not,
as I have done unto Samaria and her idols,
so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
WHEREFORE IT SHALL COME TO PASS,
that when the Lord
hath performed his whole work
upon mount Zion
and on Jerusalem,
I will punish the fruit of the stout heart
of the king of Assyria,
and the glory of his high looks.
For he saith,
By the strength of my hand I have done it,
and by my wisdom;
for I am prudent:
and I have removed the bounds of the people,
and have robbed their treasures,
and I have put down the inhabitants
like a valiant man:
And my hand hath found
as a nest the riches of the people:
and as one gathereth eggs that are left
have I gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved the wing,
or opened the mouth,
or peeped.
Shall the axe boast itself
against him that heweth therewith?
or shall the saw magnify itself
against him that shaketh it?
as if the rod should shake itself
against them that lift it up,
or as if the staff should lift up itself,
as if it were no wood.
THEREFORE SHALL THE LORD,
THE LORD OF HOSTS,
SEND AMONG HIS FAT ONES LEANNESS;
and under his glory he shall kindle a burning
like the burning of a fire.
And the light of Israel shall be for a fire,
and his Holy One for a flame:
and it shall burn
and devour his thorns
and his briers
in one day;
And shall consume the glory of his forest,
and of his fruitful field,
both soul and body:
and they shall be as when a standardbearer fainteth.
And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few,
that a child may write them.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY,
that the remnant of Israel,
and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob,
shall no more again stay upon him that smote them;
but shall stay upon the LORD,
the Holy One of Israel,
in truth.
The remnant shall return,
even the remnant of Jacob,
unto the mighty God.
For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea,
yet a remnant of them shall return:
the consumption decreed
shall overflow with righteousness.
For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption,
even determined,
in the midst of all the land.
THEREFORE THUS SAITH THE LORD
GOD OF HOSTS,
O my people that dwellest in Zion,
be not afraid of the Assyrian:
he shall smite thee with a rod,
and shall lift up his staff against thee,
after the manner of Egypt.
For yet a very little while,
and the indignation shall cease,
and mine anger in their destruction.
And the LORD of hosts
shall stir up a scourge for him
according to the slaughter of Midian
at the rock of Oreb:
and as his rod was upon the sea,
so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY,
that his burden shall be taken away
from off thy shoulder,
and his yoke from off thy neck,
and the yoke shall be destroyed
because of the anointing.
He is come to Aiath,
he is passed to Migron;
at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages:
They are gone over the passage:
they have taken up their lodging at Geba;
Ramah is afraid;
Gibeah of Saul is fled.
Lift up thy voice,
O daughter of Gallim:
cause it to be heard unto Laish,
O poor Anathoth.
Madmenah is removed;
the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
As yet shall he remain at Nob that day:
he shall shake his hand
against the mount of the daughter of Zion,
the hill of Jerusalem.
BEHOLD, THE LORD,
THE LORD OF HOSTS,
SHALL LOP THE BOUGH WITH TERROR:
and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down,
and the haughty shall be humbled.
And he shall cut down the thickets
of the forest with iron,
and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.
And there shall come forth a rod
out of the stem of Jesse,
and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge
and of the fear of the LORD;
And shall make him of quick understanding
in the fear of the LORD:
and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth:
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
and the calf
and the young lion
and the fatling
together;
and a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed;
their young ones shall lie down together:
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand
on the cockatrice’ den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountain:
for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD,
as the waters cover the sea.
AND IN THAT DAY
THERE SHALL BE A ROOT OF JESSE,
WHICH SHALL STAND
FOR AN ENSIGN OF THE PEOPLE;
to it shall the Gentiles seek:
and his rest shall be glorious.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THAT DAY,
that the Lord shall set his hand again
the second time
to recover the remnant of his people,
which shall be left,
from Assyria,
and from Egypt,
and from Pathros,
and from Cush,
and from Elam,
and from Shinar,
and from Hamath,
and from the islands of the sea.
He shall set up an ensign for the nations,
and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather together the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth.
The envy also of Ephraim shall depart,
and the adversaries of Judah
shall be cut off:
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
But they shall fly
upon the shoulders of the Philistines
toward the west;
they shall spoil them of the east together:
they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab;
and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
And the LORD shall utterly destroy
the tongue of the Egyptian sea;
and with his mighty wind
shall he shake his hand over the river,
and shall smite it in the seven streams,
and make men go over dryshod.
And there shall be an highway
for the remnant of his people,
which shall be left,
from Assyria;
like as it was to Israel
in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
AND IN THAT DAY THOU SHALT SAY,
O LORD, I will praise thee:
though thou wast angry with me,
thine anger is turned away,
and thou comfortedst me.
BEHOLD,
GOD IS MY SALVATION;
I will trust,
and not be afraid:
for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength
and my song;
he also is become my salvation.
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water
out of the wells of salvation.
AND IN THAT DAY SHALL YE SAY,
Praise the LORD,
call upon his name,
declare his doings among the people,
make mention that his name is exalted.
SING UNTO THE LORD;
for he hath done excellent things:
this is known in all the earth.
Cry out and shout,
thou inhabitant of Zion:
for great is the Holy One of Israel
in the midst of thee.
Isaiah 6:1-12:6