Isaiah 8

Revised Geneva Translation

8 Moreover, the LORD said to me, “Take a great scroll and write with a man’s pen: ‘Make speed to the spoil. Hurry to the prey.’”

² Then I took to myself faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the Priest and Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah.

³ Afterward, I went in to the Prophetess, who conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Call his name, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

⁴ “For before the child shall have knowledge to cry ‘My father and my mother’, he shall take away the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria, before the king of Assyria.”

⁵ And the LORD spoke yet again to me, saying,

⁶ “Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah (which run softly) and rejoice with Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

⁷ “now, therefore, behold, the LORD brings up the waters of the river upon them, mighty and great. And the king of Assyria, with all his glory, shall come up upon all their rivers and go over all their banks,

⁸ “and shall break into Judah, shall overflow and pass through, shall come up to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

⁹ “Gather together on heaps, O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces! And listen, all you from far countries! Gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces! Gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces!”

¹⁰ Take counsel together, but it shall be brought to nothing. Pronounce a decree, but it shall not stand. For God is with us.

¹¹ For the LORD spoke this to me, in the taking of my hand, and taught me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,

¹² “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy’ to all that which this people says is conspiracy, or fear their fear or be afraid of them.

¹³ “Sanctify the LORD of Hosts and let Him be your fear. And let Him be your dread.

¹⁴ “And He shall be a Sanctuary; but as a stumbling stone to both the Houses of Israel, and as a rock to fall upon, and as a snare, and as a net to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁵ “And many among them shall stumble, and shall fall, and shall be broken, and shall be snared, and shall be taken.

¹⁶ “Bind up the Testimony. Seal up the Law among My disciples.”

¹⁷ Therefore, I will wait upon the LORD, Who has hidden His Face from the House of Jacob. And I will look for Him.

¹⁸ Behold, I, and the children whom the LORD has given me, are as signs and as wonders in Israel, by the LORD of Hosts, Who dwells on Mount Zion.

¹⁹ And when they shall say to you, “Inquire of those who have a spirit of divination and of the soothsayers who whisper and murmur”, should not a people inquire of their God, rather than the living of the dead?

²⁰ Inquire of the Law and of the Testimony. If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.

²¹ Then those who are afflicted and famished shall wander to and fro. And when they become hungry, they shall be enraged and curse their king and his gods and shall look upward.

²² And when they shall look to the earth, they shall behold trouble and darkness, vexation and anguish, and shall be driven to wickedness.