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OEB ISA Chapter 8

◄ ISA 8 ► ║ ©

8 The Lord said to me, ‘Take a large tablet, and write upon it in the common script ’Speed-spoil 2 Hurry-prey;’ and take (two) reliable witnesses, 3 Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.’ Then after the prophetess, through my approach to her, had conceived and borne a son, the Lord said to me, ‘Call his name Speed-spoil Hurry-prey.

4 For ere the child will know

how to cry ’My father! My mother!’

The wealth of Damascus, the spoil of Samaria,

will be carried away to the king of Assyria.’

The invasion of Judah

5 Once more I had a message from the Lord – it was this:

6 ‘Because this people has spurned

the gentle stream of Shiloah,

and melt with fear of Rezin

and the son of Remaliah,

7 therefore, behold, the Lord

will speedily bring upon them

the waters of the Euphrates,

the great and mighty river.

It will rise above all its channels,

and overflow all its banks.

8 On it will sweep over Judah,

an overflowing flood

that will reach as high as the neck.’

But (the Lord’s) outstretched wings

will cover the breadth of the land;

for with us is God.

The futility of opposition to Judah

9 you may storm as you will, you nations,

you will be shattered.

All you far-distant lands

of the earth, attend.

You may gird yourselves for the fray,

but you all will be shattered.

10 You may forge your plans as you will,

they will all be confounded.

Be your resolves what they will,

they will not be accomplished;

for with us is God.

None is to be feared but the Lord

11 These were the Lord’s words to me, as he grasped me with his hand and warned me not to walk in the ways of the people:

12 ‘Call you not all a conspiracy

that this people calls conspiracy.

Share not their fears and their dreads.

13 But the Lord of Hosts – it is he

you should count as the great conspirator.

Let him be your fear and your dread.

14 A stone and a rock he will prove, whereon

both houses of Israel will strike and stumble –

a trap and a snare to the folk of Jerusalem.

15 Many among them will stumble and fall,

will be broken and snared and taken.

Isaiah’s patient hope

16 I will seal my teaching and fasten my message 17 in (the heart of) my disciples. I will patiently wait for the Lord who hides his face from the 18 household of Israel; I will set my hope in him. I myself and the children the Lord has given me are in Israel as signs and symbols from the Lord of Hosts whose home is on Mount Zion.

The awful plight of unbelieving Judah

19 When they tell you have recourse to ghosts and familiar spirits that chirp and mutter, ask them if a nation should not rather have recourse to its God. Why should they consult the dead on behalf 20 of the living? Assuredly they will (one day) clamour for the teaching and the message, when there is no daybreak for them any more.

21 They will range through the land sore pressed and hungry,

and hunger will curse their king and their God.

22 They will lift up their eyes to the heavens above,

they will look to the earth beneath;

but they will see nothing but distress and anguish,

and thick impenetrable gloom.

The great deliverance and the glorious king