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Isaiah 8
The birth of a son to Isaiah
1 Yahweh said to me, ‘Take a large seal and scratch on it in ordinary writing MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ.[*a]
2 Then find me reliable witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.’
3 I went to the prophetess, she conceived and gave birth to a son. Yahweh said to me, ‘Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz,
4 for before the child knows how to say father or mother, the wealth of Damascus and the booty of Samaria will be carried off before the king of Assyria’.
Shiloah and the Euphrates
5 Yahweh spoke to me again and said:
6 Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah[*b] which flow in tranquillity, and trembles before Razon and the son of Remaliah,
7 the Lord will bring up against you the mighty and deep waters of the River (the king of Assyria and all his glory), and it will overflow out of its bed bursting all its banks;
8 it will inundate Judah, flow over, pour out, flooding it up to the neck, and its wings will be spread over the whole breadth of your country, O Immanuel.
Terror for the invaders
9 Know this, peoples, you will be crushed; listen, far-off nations, arm yourselves, yet you will be crushed.
10 Devise a plan, it is thwarted; put forward an argument, there is no substance in it, for God is with us.[*c]
Yahweh a stone in the way
11 Yes, Yahweh spoke to me like this when his hand seized hold of me to turn me from walking in the path that this people follows.
12 Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, do not be afraid of them.
13 It is Yahweh Sabaoth, whom you must hold in veneration, him you must fear, him you must dread.
14 He is the sanctuary and the stumbling-stone and the rock that brings down the two Houses of Israel; a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 By it many will be brought down, many fail and be broken, be trapped and made captive.
Isaiah addresses his disciples
16 I bind up this testimony, I seal this revelation, in the heart of my disciples.
17 I wait for Yahweh who hides his face from the House of Jacob; in him I hope.
18 I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are signs and portents in Israel from Yahweh Sabaoth who dwells on Mount Zion.
19 And should men say to you, ‘Consult ghosts and wizards that whisper and mutter’ – by all means a people must consult its gods and, on behalf of the living, consult the dead.
20 To obtain a revelation and a testimony, without doubt this is how they will talk, since there is no dawn for them.
Wandering in the night
21 Distressed and starving he will wander through the country and, starving, he will become frenzied, blaspheming his king and his God; turning his gaze upward,
22 then down to the earth, he will find only distress and darkness, the blackness of anguish, and will see nothing but night.
23 Is not all blackness where anguish is?