Isaiah 7-11

Isaiah 7

¹Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but were not able to overcome it.

²And word came to the family of David that Aram had put up its tents in Ephraim. And the king's heart, and the hearts of his people, were moved, like the trees of the wood shaking in the wind.

³Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now, you and Shear-jashub, your son, and you will come across Ahaz at the end of the stream flowing from the higher pool, in the highway of the washerman's field;

⁴And say to him, Take care and be quiet; have no fear, and do not let your heart be feeble, because of these two ends of smoking fire-wood, because of the bitter wrath of Rezin and Aram, and of the son of Remaliah.

⁵Because Aram has made evil designs against you, saying,

⁶Let us go up against Judah, troubling her, and forcing our way into her, and let us put up a king in her, even the son of Tabeel:

⁷This is the word of the Lord God: This design will not come about or be effected.

⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin (and in sixty-five years from now Ephraim will be broken, and will no longer be a people):

⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you will not have faith, your kingdom will be broken.

¹⁰And Isaiah said again to Ahaz,

¹¹Make a request to the Lord your God for a sign, a sign in the deep places of the underworld, or in the high heavens.

¹²But Ahaz said, I will not put the Lord to the test by making such a request.

¹³And he said, Give ear now, O family of David: is it not enough that you are driving men to disgust? will you do the same to my God?

¹⁴For this cause the Lord himself will give you a sign; a young woman is now with child, and she will give birth to a son, and she will give him the name Immanuel.

¹⁵Butter and honey will be his food, when he is old enough to make a decision between evil and good.

¹⁶For before the child is old enough to make a decision between evil and good, the land whose two kings you are now fearing will have become waste.

¹⁷The Lord is about to send on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, such a time of trouble as there has not been from the days of the separating of Ephraim from Judah; even the coming of the king of Assyria.

¹⁸And it will be in that day that the Lord will make a piping sound for the fly which is in the end of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of Assyria.

¹⁹And they will come, covering all the waste valleys, and the holes of the rocks, and the thorns, and all the watering-places.

²⁰In that day will the Lord take away the hair of the head and of the feet, as well as the hair of the face, with a blade got for a price from the other side of the River; even with the king of Assyria.

²¹And it will be in that day that a man will give food to a young cow and two sheep;

²²And they will give so much milk that he will be able to have butter for his food: for butter and honey will be the food of all who are still living in the land.

²³And it will be in that day that in every place where before there were a thousand vines valued at a thousand shekels of silver, there will be nothing but blackberries and thorns.

²⁴Men will come there with bows and arrows, because all the land will be full of blackberries and thorns.

²⁵And they will send out the oxen and the sheep on all the hills which before were worked with the spade, ... fear of blackberries and thorns.

Isaiah 8

¹And the Lord said to me, Take a great writing-board, and on it put down in common letters, Maher-shalal-hash-baz;

²And take true witnesses to the writing, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah.

³And I went in to my wife, and she became with child, and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, Give him the name Maher-shalal-hash-baz,

⁴For before the child is able to say, Father, or, Mother, the wealth of Damascus and the goods of Samaria will be taken away by the king of Assyria.

⁵And the Lord said again to me,

⁶Because this people will have nothing to do with the softly-flowing waters of Shiloah, and have fear of Rezin and Remaliah's son;

⁷For this cause the Lord is sending on them the waters of the River, deep and strong, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and it will come up through all its streams, overflowing all its edges:

⁸And it will come on into Judah; rushing on and overflowing, till the waters are up to the neck; …and his outstretched wings will be covering the land from side to side: for God is with us.

⁹Have knowledge, O peoples, and be in fear; give ear, all you far-off parts of the earth:

¹⁰Let your designs be formed, and they will come to nothing; give your orders, and they will not be effected: for God is with us.

¹¹For the Lord, controlling me with a strong hand, gave me orders not to go in the way of this people, saying,

¹²Do not say, It is holy, about everything of which this people says, It is holy; and do not be in fear of what they go in fear of.

¹³But let the Lord of armies be holy to you, and go in fear of him, giving honour to him.

¹⁴And he will be for a holy place: but for a stone of falling and a rock of trouble to the two houses of Israel, and to the men of Jerusalem, for a net in which they may be taken.

¹⁵And numbers of them, falling on the stone, will be broken, and will be taken in the net.

¹⁶Let my teaching be kept secret: and my words be given to my disciples only.

¹⁷And I will be waiting for the Lord, whose face is veiled from the house of Jacob, and I will be looking for him.

¹⁸See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of armies, whose resting-place is in Mount Zion.

¹⁹And when they say to you, Make request for us to those who have control of spirits, and to those wise in secret arts, who make hollow bird-like sounds; is it not right for a people to make request to their gods, to make request for the living to the dead?

²⁰Then say to them, Put your faith in the teaching and the witness. ... If they do not say such things. ... For him there is no dawn. ...

²¹And he will go through the land in bitter trouble and in need of food; and when he is unable to get food, he will become angry, cursing his king and his God, and his eyes will be turned to heaven on high;

²²And he will be looking down on the earth, and there will be trouble and dark clouds, black night where there is no seeing.

Isaiah 9

¹In earlier times he made the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali of small value, but after that he gave it glory, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

²The people who went in the dark have seen a great light, and for those who were living in the land of the deepest night, the light is shining.

³You have made them very glad, increasing their joy. They are glad before you as men are glad in the time of getting in the grain, or when they make division of the goods taken in war.

⁴For by your hand the yoke on his neck and the rod on his back, even the rod of his cruel master, have been broken, as in the day of Midian.

⁵For every boot of the man of war with his sounding step, and the clothing rolled in blood, will be for burning, food for the fire.

⁶For to us a child has come, to us a son is given; and the government has been placed in his hands; and he has been named Wise Guide, Strong God, Father for ever, Prince of Peace.

⁷Of the increase of his rule and of peace there will be no end, on the seat of David, and in his kingdom; to make it strong, supporting it with wise decision and righteousness, now and for ever. By the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.

⁸The Lord has sent a word to Jacob, and it has come on Israel;

⁹And all the people will have experience of it, even Ephraim and the men of Samaria, who say in the pride of their uplifted hearts,

¹⁰The bricks have come down, but we will put up buildings of cut stone in their place: the sycamores are cut down, but they will be changed to cedars.

¹¹For this cause the Lord has made strong the haters of Israel, driving them on to make war against him;

¹²Aram on the east, and the Philistines on the west, who have come against Israel with open mouths. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹³But the heart of the people was not turned to him who sent punishment on them, and they made no prayer to the Lord of armies.

¹⁴For this cause the Lord took away from Israel head and tail, high and low, in one day.

¹⁵The man who is honoured and responsible is the head, and the prophet who gives false teaching is the tail.

¹⁶For the guides of this people are the cause of their wandering from the right way, and those who are guided by them come to destruction.

¹⁷For this cause the Lord will have no pleasure in their young men, and no pity on their widows and the children without fathers: for they are all haters of God and evil-doers, and foolish words come from every mouth. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹⁸For evil was burning like a fire; the blackberries and thorns were burned up; the thick woods took fire, rolling up in dark clouds of smoke.

¹⁹The land was dark with the wrath of the Lord of armies: the people were like those who take men's flesh for food.

²⁰On the right a man was cutting off bits and was still in need; on the left a man took a meal but had not enough; no man had pity on his brother; every man was making a meal of the flesh of his neighbour.

²¹Manasseh was making a meal of Ephraim, and Ephraim of Manasseh; and together they were attacking Judah. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 10

¹Cursed are those who make evil decisions, and the writers who make the records of their cruel acts:

²Who do wrong to the poor in their cause, and take away the right of the crushed among my people, so that they may have the property of widows, and get under their power those who have no father.

³And what will you do in the day of punishment, and in the destruction which is coming from far? to whom will you go for help, and what will become of your glory?

⁴... For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

⁵Ho! Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, the instrument of my punishment!

⁶I will send him against a nation of wrongdoers, and against the people of my wrath I will give him orders, to take their wealth in war, crushing them down like the dust in the streets.

⁷But this is not what is in his mind, and this is not his design; but his purpose is destruction, and the cutting off of more and more nations.

⁸For he says, Are not all my captains kings?

⁹Will not the fate of Calno be like that of Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

¹⁰As my hand has come on the kingdoms of the images, whose pictured images were more in number than those of Jerusalem and Samaria;

¹¹So, as I have done to Samaria and her images, I will do to Jerusalem and her images.

¹²For this cause it will be that, when the purpose of the Lord against Mount Zion and Jerusalem is complete, I will send punishment on the pride of the heart of the king of Assyria, and on the glory of his uplifted eyes.

¹³For he has said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my knowledge, for I am wise: and I have taken away the limits of the peoples' lands, and the stores of their wealth have become mine; and I have made towns low in the dust, sending destruction on those living in them;

¹⁴And I have put my hands on the wealth of the peoples, as on the place where a bird has put her eggs; and as a man may take the eggs from which a bird has gone, so I have taken all the earth for myself: and not a wing was moved, and not a mouth gave out a sound.

¹⁵Will the axe say high-sounding words against him who is using it, or the blade be full of pride against him who is cutting with it? As if a rod had the power of shaking him who is using it, or as if a stick might take up him who is not wood.

¹⁶For this cause the Lord, the Lord of armies, will make his fat become wasted; and in his inner parts a fire will be lighted like a burning flame.

¹⁷And the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: wasting and burning up his thorns in one day.

¹⁸And he will put an end to the glory of his woods and of his planted fields, soul and body together; and it will be as when a man is wasted by disease.

¹⁹And the rest of the trees of his wood will be small in number, so that a child may put them down in writing.

²⁰And it will be in that day that the rest of Israel, and those of Jacob who have come safely through these troubles, will no longer go for help to him whose rod was on their back, but their faith will be in the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

²¹The rest, even the rest of Jacob, will come back to the Strong God.

²²For though your people, O Israel, are as the sand of the sea, only a small number will come back: for the destruction is fixed, overflowing in righteousness.

²³For the Lord, the Lord of armies, is about to make destruction complete in all the land.

²⁴For this cause the Lord, the Lord of armies, says, O my people living in Zion, have no fear of the Assyrian, even if his rod comes on your back, and his stick is lifted up as in Egypt.

²⁵For in a very short time my passion will be over, and my wrath will be turned to their destruction.

²⁶And the Lord of armies will be shaking a whip against him, as when he overcame Midian at the rock of Oreb: and his rod will be lifted up against them as it was against the Egyptians.

²⁷And in that day the weight which he put on your back will be taken away, and his yoke broken from off your neck.

²⁸He has gone up from Pene-Rimmon, he has come to Aiath; he has gone past Migron, at Michmash he puts his forces in order.

²⁹They have gone across the mountain; Geba will be our resting-place tonight, they say: Ramah is shaking with fear; Gibeah of Saul has gone in flight.

³⁰Give a loud cry, daughter of Gallim; let Laishah give ear; let Anathoth give answer to her.

³¹Madmenah has gone; the men of Gebim are putting their goods in a safe place.

³²This very day he is stopping at Nob; he is shaking his hand against the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

³³See, the Lord, the Lord of armies, is cutting off his branches with a great noise, and his strong ones are falling and his high ones are coming down.

³⁴And he is cutting down the thick places of the wood with an axe, and Lebanon with its tall trees is coming down.

Isaiah 11

¹And there will come a rod out of the broken tree of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will give fruit.

²And the spirit of the Lord will be resting on him, the spirit of wisdom and good sense, the spirit of wise guiding and strength, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;

³And he will not be guided in his judging by what he sees, or give decisions by the hearing of his ears:

⁴But he will do right in the cause of the poor, and give wise decisions for those in the land who are in need; and the rod of his mouth will come down on the cruel, and with the breath of his lips he will put an end to the evil-doer.

⁵And righteousness will be the cord of his robe, and good faith the band round his breast.

⁶And the wolf will be living with the lamb, and the leopard will take his rest with the young goat; and the lion will take grass for food like the ox; and the young lion will go with the young ones of the herd; and a little child will be their guide.

⁷And the cow and the bear will be friends while their young ones are sleeping together.

⁸And the child at the breast will be playing by the hole of the snake, and the older child will put his hand on the bright eye of the poison-snake.

⁹There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain: for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters.

¹⁰And in that day, the eyes of the nations will be turned to the root of Jesse which will be lifted up as the flag of the peoples; and his resting-place will be glory.

¹¹And in that day the hand of the Lord will be stretched out the second time to get back the rest of his people, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the sea-lands.

¹²And he will put up a flag as a sign to the nations, and he will get together those of Israel who had been sent away, and the wandering ones of Judah, from the four ends of the earth.

¹³And the envy of Ephraim will be gone, and those who make trouble for Judah will come to an end: Ephraim will have no more envy of Judah, and there will be an end of Judah's hate for Ephraim.

¹⁴And they will be united in attacking the Philistines on the west, and together they will take the goods of the children of the east: their hand will be on Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon will be under their rule.

¹⁵And the Lord will make the tongue of the Egyptian sea completely dry; and with his burning wind his hand will be stretched out over the River, and it will be parted into seven streams, so that men may go over it with dry feet.

¹⁶And there will be a highway for the rest of his people from Assyria; as there was for Israel in the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.