ISAIAH (NIV)
- The Lord said to me, "Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
- And I will call in Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah as reliable witnesses for me."
- Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, "Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
- Before the boy knows how to say 'My father' or 'My mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria."
- The Lord spoke to me again:
- "Because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah,
- therefore the Lord is about to bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Riever - the king of Assyria with all his pomp. It will overflow all its channels, run over all its banks
- and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it, passing through it and reaching up to the neck. Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel!"
- Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
- Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us.
- The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people. He said:
- "Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it.
- The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread,
- and he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.
- Many of them will stumble; they will fall and be broken, they will be snared and captured."
- Bind up the testimony and seal up the law among my disciples.
- I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him.
- Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.
- When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?
- To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
- Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.
- Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
