Isaiah 8
8
1Then God told me, “Get a big sheet of paper and write in indelible ink, ‘This belongs to Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Spoil-Speeds-Plunder-Hurries).’”
2-3a I got two honest men, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah, to witness the document. Then I went home to my wife, the prophetess. She conceived and gave birth to a son.
3b-4 God told me, “Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Before that baby says ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mamma’ the king of Assyria will have plundered the wealth of Damascus and the riches of Samaria.”
* * *
5-8 God spoke to me again, saying:
“Because this people has turned its back
on the gently flowing stream of Shiloah
And gotten all excited over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,
I’m stepping in and facing them with
the wild floodwaters of the Euphrates,
The king of Assyria and all his fanfare,
a river in flood, bursting its banks,
Pouring into Judah, sweeping everything before it,
water up to your necks,
A huge wingspan of a raging river,
O Immanuel, spreading across your land.”
* * *
9-10But face the facts, all you oppressors, and then wring your hands.
Listen, all of you, far and near.
Prepare for the worst and wring your hands.
Yes, prepare for the worst and wring your hands!
Plan and plot all you want—nothing will come of it.
All your talk is mere talk, empty words,
Because when all is said and done,
the last word is Immanuel—God-With-Us.
A Boulder Blocking Your Way
11-15 God spoke strongly to me, grabbed me with both hands and warned me not to go along with this people. He said:
“Don’t be like this people,
always afraid somebody is plotting against them.
Don’t fear what they fear.
Don’t take on their worries.
If you’re going to worry,
worry about The Holy. Fear God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
The Holy can be either a Hiding Place
or a Boulder blocking your way,
The Rock standing in the willful way
of both houses of Israel,
A barbed-wire Fence preventing trespass
to the citizens of Jerusalem.
Many of them are going to run into that Rock
and get their bones broken,
Get tangled up in that barbed wire
and not get free of it.”
* * *
16-18Gather up the testimony,
preserve the teaching for my followers,
While I wait for God as long as he remains in hiding,
while I wait and hope for him.
I stand my ground and hope,
I and the children God gave me as signs to Israel,
Warning signs and hope signs from God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
who makes his home in Mount Zion.
19-22When people tell you, “Try out the fortunetellers.
Consult the spiritualists.
Why not tap into the spirit-world,
get in touch with the dead?”
Tell them, “No, we’re going to study the Scriptures.”
People who try the other ways get nowhere—a dead end!
Frustrated and famished,
they try one thing after another.
When nothing works out they get angry,
cursing first this god and then that one,
Looking this way and that,
up, down, and sideways—and seeing nothing,
A blank wall, an empty hole.
They end up in the dark with nothing.
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Isaiah 8: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Isaiah 8
8
The Coming Assyrian Invasion
1Then the Lord said to me, “Take a large piece of parchment#8:1 Hb obscure and write on it with an ordinary pen:#8:1 Lit with the pen of a man#Is 30:8; Hab 2:2 Maher-shalal-hash-baz.#8:1 = Speeding to the Plunder, Hurrying to the Spoil 2I have appointed#8:2 Vg; MT, one DSS ms read I will appoint; one DSS ms, LXX, Syr, Tg read Appoint trustworthy witnesses — the priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.”#2Kg 16:10–11,15–16
3I was then intimate with the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. The Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 4for before the boy knows how to call ‘Father,’ or ‘Mother,’#Is 7:16 the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be carried off to the king of Assyria.”#Is 7:8–9
5The Lord spoke to me again:
6Because these people rejected
the slowly flowing water of Shiloah
and rejoiced with#8:6 Or and rejoiced over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,#Is 7:1
7the Lord will certainly bring against them
the mighty rushing water of the Euphrates River —
the king of Assyria and all his glory.
It will overflow its channels
and spill over all its banks.
8It will pour into Judah,
flood over it, and sweep through,
reaching up to the neck;#Is 30:28
and its flooded banks#8:8 Lit its outspread wings
will fill your entire land, Immanuel!#Is 7:14; 8:10
9Band together,#8:9 Or Raise the war cry, or Be shattered peoples, and be broken;
pay attention, all you distant lands;
prepare for war, and be broken;
prepare for war, and be broken.
10Devise a plan; it will fail.#Is 14:27
Make a prediction; it will not happen.
For God is with us.#8:10 Hb Immanuel#Is 8:8
The Lord of Armies, the Only Refuge
11For this is what the Lord said to me with great power, to keep#8:11 DSS; MT reads instruct me from going the way of this people:#Ezk 2:8
12Do not call everything a conspiracy
that these people say is a conspiracy.#Is 7:2; 30:1
Do not fear what they fear;#1Pt 3:14
do not be terrified.
13You are to regard only the Lord of Armies as holy.#Nm 20:12
Only he should be feared;#1Pt 3:15
only he should be held in awe.
14He will be a sanctuary;#Is 4:6; 25:4; Ezk 11:16
but for the two houses of Israel,
he will be a stone#Ps 91:12; Is 26:4 to stumble over
and a rock to trip over,#Lk 2:34; Rm 9:33; 1Pt 2:8
and a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15Many will stumble over these;#Is 28:13; 59:10; Lk 20:18; Rm 9:32
they will fall and be broken;
they will be snared and captured.
16Bind up the testimony.#Is 8:1–2; 29:11–12
Seal up the instruction#Dn 12:4 among my disciples.
17I will wait for the Lord,#Ps 27:14; 33:20; 37:34; 130:5–6; Is 25:9; 30:18; Lm 3:26; Hab 2:3; 1Co 1:7; Php 3:20
who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.#Dt 31:17; Is 1:15; 45:15; 54:8
I will wait for him.
18Here I am with the children the Lord has given me#Heb 2:13 to be signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of Armies who dwells on Mount Zion. 19When they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who chirp and mutter,”#Lv 20:6; 2Kg 21:6; 23:24; Is 19:3; 29:4; 47:12–13 shouldn’t a people inquire of their God?#8:19 Or gods Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?#1Sm 28:8–11 20Go to God’s instruction and testimony!#Is 1:10; Lk 16:29 If they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.
21They will wander through the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged, and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. 22They will look toward the earth#Is 5:30; 59:9; Jr 13:16; Am 5:18,20; Zph 1:14–15 and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.
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