Isaiah’s Son is Born

1The LORD also told me, “Take a large tablet and write on it with a stylusa pen, ‘For Maher-shalal-hash-baz’.b 2Then I will callc Uriah the priest and Jeberechiah’s son Zechariah as reliable witnesses to testify on my behalf.”

3After this, I was intimate with the prophetess and she conceived. Later, she bore a son, and then the LORD told me,d “Call hime ‘Maher-shalal-hash-baz,’ 4for before the young lad knows how to call out to his father or mother,f the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

Invasion by Assyria

5The LORD spoke to me again: 6“Because this people have rejected the gently-flowing waters of Shiloah, and becauseg they keep rejoicing in Rezin and Remaliah’s son, 7watch out! The LORD Godh is about to bring the flood waters of the Euphratesi River against them, mighty and strong.j

“It’s the king of Assyria and all of his arrogance! He will rise over all of the river’s channels and run over all of its banks. 8He will sweep on into Judah, overflowing as he passes through, like flood watersk reaching up to a person’s neck. His outstretched wings will flow as wide as your land, O Immanuel!”

9“Band together,l you peoples,

but be shattered!

Listen, all you distant countries!

Strap on your armor,

but be shattered.m

10Take counsel together,

but it will all be for nothing;

go ahead and talk,

butn it will all be for nothing,o

for God is with us.”p

Waiting on God

11Forq this is what the LORD spoke to me, as his forceful hand was resting on me, and as he was warning me not to live the way this people were living:r

12“Don’t call conspiracy everything

that this people calls conspiracy,

and don’t fear what they fear,

or live in terror.

13The LORD of the Heavenly Armies—

he’s the one you are to regard as holy.

Let him be the one whom you fear,

and let him be the one before whom you stand in terror!

14Then he will be a sanctuary,

but for both houses of Israel

he’ll also be a stone with which someone strikes himself,

a rock one stumbles over,

a trap and a snare to those who live in Jerusalem.

15Many will stumble on them;

They’ll fall and be broken;

They’ll be snared and captured.

16“Bind up the testimony,

and seal up the teaching among my disciples.

17I’ll wait for the LORD,

who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob,

and I’ll put my trust in him.

18Watch out! I and the children

whom the LORD has given me

are a sign and a wonders in Israel

from the LORD of the Heavenly Armies,

who resides on Mount Zion.”

Rejecting Occultic Wisdom

19“So when they advise you,

‘Ask the mediums your questions,

and quiz the spiritists who chirp and mutter,’

shouldn’t a people instead be consulting their God—t

and not the dead—

on behalf of those who are living

20for instruction and for testimony?

Surely they are speaking like this

because the truthu hasn’t dawned on them.

21“They’ll pass through the land,v

whilew greatly distressed and hungry.

When they are hungry,

they’ll become enraged,

and they’ll curse their king and their god.x

They’ll turn their faces upwards,

22or they’ll look toward they earth,

but they’ll see only distress and darkness,

the gloom that comes from anguish,

and then they’ll be thrown into total darkness.”