The Living Bible (220 page)

Isaiah
6

The year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord! He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the Temple was filled with his glory.
²
 Hovering about him were mighty, six-winged angels of fire. With two of their wings they covered their faces, with two others they covered their feet, and with two they flew.
³
 In a great antiphonal chorus they sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is filled with his glory.”
⁴
 Such singing it was! It shook the Temple to its foundations, and suddenly the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke.

    
⁵
 Then I said, “My doom is sealed, for I am a foul-mouthed sinner, a member of a sinful, foul-mouthed race; and I have looked upon the King, the Lord of heaven’s armies.”

    
⁶
 Then one of the mighty angels flew over to the altar and with a pair of tongs picked out a burning coal.
⁷
 He touched my lips with it and said, “Now you are pronounced ‘not guilty’ because this coal has touched your lips. Your sins are all forgiven.”

    
⁸
 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go?”

    
And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send
me.”

    
⁹
 And he said, “Yes, go. But tell my people this: ‘Though you hear my words repeatedly, you won’t understand them. Though you watch and watch as I perform my miracles, still you won’t know what they mean.’
¹⁰
 Dull their understanding, close their ears, and shut their eyes. I don’t want them to see or to hear or to understand, or to turn to me to heal them.”
*

    
¹¹
 Then I said, “Lord, how long will it be before they are ready to listen?”

    
And he replied, “Not until their cities are destroyed—without a person left—and the whole country is an utter wasteland,
¹²
 and they are all taken away as slaves to other countries far away, and all the land of Israel lies deserted!
¹³
 Yet a tenth—a remnant—will survive; and though Israel is invaded again and again and destroyed, yet Israel will be like a tree cut down, whose stump still lives to grow again.”

Isaiah
7

During the reign of Ahaz (the son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah), Jerusalem was attacked by King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah of Israel (the son of Remaliah). But it was not taken; the city stood.
²
 However, when the news came to the royal court, “Syria is allied with Israel against us!” the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear as the trees of a forest shake in a storm.

    
³
 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet King Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub, your son. You will find him at the end of the aqueduct that leads from Gihon Spring to the upper reservoir, near the road that leads down to the bleaching field.
⁴
 Tell him to quit worrying. Tell him he needn’t be frightened by the fierce anger of those two has-beens, Rezin and Pekah.
⁵
 Yes, the kings of Syria and Israel are coming against you.

    
“They say,
⁶
 ‘We will invade Judah and throw her people into panic. Then we’ll fight our way into Jerusalem and install the son of Tabeel as their king.’

    
⁷
 “But the Lord God says: This plan will not succeed,
⁸
 for Damascus will remain the capital of Syria alone, and King Rezin’s kingdom will not increase its boundaries. And within sixty-five years Ephraim, too, will be crushed and broken.
*
⁹
 Samaria is the capital of Ephraim alone, and King Pekah’s power will not increase. You don’t believe me? If you want me to protect you, you must learn to believe what I say.”

    
¹⁰
 Not long after this, the Lord sent this further message to King Ahaz:

    
¹¹
 “Ask me for a sign, Ahaz, to prove that I will indeed crush your enemies as I have said. Ask anything you like, in heaven or on earth.”
*

    
¹²
 But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I’ll not bother the Lord with anything like that.”

    
¹³
 Then Isaiah said: O House of David, you aren’t satisfied to exhaust
my
patience; you exhaust the Lord’s as well!
¹⁴
 All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign—a child shall be born to a virgin!
*
And she shall call him Immanuel (meaning, “God is with us”).
^15-16
 By the time this child is weaned
*
and knows right from wrong, the two kings you fear so much—the kings of Israel and Syria
*
—will both be dead.
*

    
¹⁷
 But later on,
*
the Lord will bring a terrible curse on you and on your nation and your family. There will be terror such as has not been known since the division of Solomon’s empire into Israel and Judah—the mighty king of Assyria will come with his great army!

    
¹⁸
 At that time the Lord will whistle for the army of Upper Egypt,
*
and of Assyria too, to swarm down upon you like flies and destroy you, like bees to sting and to kill.
¹⁹
 They will come in vast hordes, spreading across the whole land, even into the desolate valleys, caves, and thorny parts, as well as to all your fertile acres.
²⁰
 In that day the Lord will take this “razor”—these Assyrians you have hired to save you
*
—and use it on you to shave off everything you have: your land, your crops, your people.
*

    
^21-22
 When they finally stop plundering, the whole nation will be a pastureland; whole flocks and herds will be destroyed, and a farmer will be fortunate to have a cow and two sheep left. But the abundant pastureland will yield plenty of milk, and everyone left will live on curds and wild honey.
²³
 At that time the lush vineyards will become patches of briars.
²⁴
 All the land will be one vast thornfield, a hunting ground overrun by wildlife.
²⁵
 No one will go to the fertile hillsides where once the gardens grew, for thorns will cover them; cattle, sheep, and goats will graze there.

Isaiah
8

Again the Lord sent me a message: “Make a large signboard and write on it the birth announcement of the son I am going to give you. Use capital letters! His name will be Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means ‘Your enemies will soon be destroyed.’”
*
²
 I asked Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, both known as honest men, to watch me as I wrote so they could testify that I had written it before the child was even on the way.
*
³
 Then I had sexual intercourse with my wife and she conceived and bore me a son. And the Lord said, “Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
⁴
 This name prophesies that within a couple of years, before this child is even old enough to say ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mommy,’ the king of Assyria will invade both Damascus and Samaria and carry away their riches.”

    
⁵
 Then the Lord spoke to me again and said:

    
⁶
 “Since the people of Jerusalem are planning to refuse my gentle care
*
and are enthusiastic about asking King Rezin and King Pekah to come and aid them,
^7-8
 therefore I will overwhelm my people with Euphrates’ mighty flood; the king of Assyria and all his mighty armies will rage against them. This flood will overflow all its channels and sweep into your land of Judah, O Immanuel, submerging it from end to end.”

    
^9-10
 Do your worst, O Syria and Israel,
*
our enemies,
*
but you will not succeed—you will be shattered. Listen to me, all you enemies of ours: Prepare for war against us—and perish! Yes! Perish! Call your councils of war, develop your strategies, prepare your plans of attacking us, and perish! For God is with us.
*

    
¹¹
 The Lord has said in strongest terms: Do not under any circumstances go along with the plans of Judah to surrender to Syria and Israel.
¹²
 Don’t let people call you a traitor for staying true to God. Don’t you panic as so many of your neighbors are doing when they think of Syria and Israel attacking you.
¹³
 Don’t fear anything except the Lord of the armies of heaven! If you fear him, you need fear nothing else.
^14-15
 He will be your safety; but Israel and Judah have refused his care and thereby stumbled against the Rock of their salvation and lie fallen and crushed beneath it: God’s presence among them has endangered them!
¹⁶
 Write down all these things I am going to do, says the Lord, and seal them up for the future. Entrust them to some godly man to pass on down to godly men of future generations.

    
¹⁷
 I will wait for the Lord to help us, though he is hiding now. My only hope is in him.
¹⁸
 I and the children God has given me have symbolic names that reveal the plans of the Lord of heaven’s armies for his people: Isaiah means “Jehovah will save (his people),” Shear-jashub means “A remnant shall return,” and Maher-shalal-hash-baz means “Your enemies will soon be destroyed.”
¹⁹
 So why are you trying to find out the future by consulting witches and mediums? Don’t listen to their whisperings and mutterings. Can the living find out the future from the dead? Why not ask your God?

    
²⁰
 “Check these witches’ words against the Word of God!” he says. “If their messages are different than mine, it is because I have not sent them; for they have no light or truth in them.
²¹
 My people will be led away captive, stumbling, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rave and shake their fists at heaven and curse their King and their God.
²²
 Wherever they look there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. And they will be thrust out into the darkness.”