Isaiah 8:1-22
8 ** And Jehovah said to me “Take a great bulletin-board and write on it in cut-in letters ‘For Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz,’
2 * and have it attested for me by authoritative witnesses, Priest Urijah and Zecariah the son of Jeberekiah.”
3 * And I had intercourse with the prophetess, and she became pregnant and had a son; and Jehovah said to me “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz,
4 because before the child knows how to call ‘papa’ and ‘mamma’ they shall carry the wealth of Damascus and the booty of Samaria before the king of Assyria.”
5 And Jehovah spoke to me yet again, saying
6 * “Since this people do not care for the soft-flowing water of Shiloah but admire the hubbub of Rason and the son of Remaliah,
7 therefore here is the Lord bringing up on them the vast and voluminous water of the River, the king of Assyria and all his masses, and it shall rise in all its channels and go over all its banks
8 and off into Judah, washing everything away and passing off; it shall reach to the neck, and its spread of wing shall be the full breadth of your country, God-Is-With-Us.”
9 ** Know, peoples, and be dismayed; give ear, all remotest parts of the earth; mobilize and be dismayed, mobilize and be dismayed.
10 * Get up a plan and have it baffled, draw up a program and it will not come off, because God is with us.
11 For Jehovah said to me in the grip of his hand, and warned me from going on this people’s road,
12 “You are not to say ‘A plot’ on every occasion on which this people says ‘A plot,’ nor fear their object of fear nor be overawed:
13 Jehovah of Armies you are to revere as holy, and he is your object of fear and of awe.
14 * And he shall become a stone to strike against and a rock to stumble over for the two houses of Israel, a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
15 and many among them shall stumble and fall and break their bones, and be snared and caught.”
16 Pack up admonition, seal up instruction, among my learners,
17 and I will wait for Jehovah, who veils his face from the house of Jacob, and count on him.
18 Here I and the children God has given me are for tokens and portents in Israel from Jehovah of Armies who makes his abode on Mount Sion.
19 And when they say to you “Consult this and that sort of chirping and moaning mediums; should not each people consult its gods, on behalf of the living the dead,
20 * for instruction and admonitions?”—if they do not speak by this formula that has no magic, . . . that he has no daybreak.
21 ** And he will pass along it in hardship and hunger; and when he is hungry he will lose his temper and abuse his king and his God, and turn his face upward
22 and look toward the earth, and find scanty room and darkness to fly in, narrow limits and murkiness to stray in.
Footnotes
^ 8:1 (in cut-in letters) Lit. with a cutting or indelible writing-tool Codd.* with a wight’s writing-tool
^ 8:1 Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means Booty-Quick-Plunder-Hurrying
^ 8:2 Var. and I will have Conj.* and I had
^ 8:3 Lit. I came near the prophetess
^ 8:6 (admire) Unc.; codd.* rejoice with
^ 8:9 (Know) Var. Break or Be wicked
^ 8:9 (be dismayed) Or be shivered (three times)
^ 8:10 Lit. to have it baffled
^ 8:14 Codd. become a sanctuary and a stone
^ 8:20 that has no magic and that he has no daybreak are two translations of the same Hebrew words; it is not clear whether the words mean one thing and belong with verse 20 or mean the other thing and belong with verse 21, nor whether there was originally any connection between verse 20 and verse 21 at all
^ 8:21 Or curse by his king and
^ 8:21 Or and his god Or and his gods
