1Then Yahweh said to me, “Take yourself a large tablet and write on it with a common stylus: ‘Concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’”
2And I will summon for myself faithful witnesses to testify: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.
3Then I drew near to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. And Yahweh said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz;
4for before the boy knows how to cry ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried off before the king of Assyria.”
5And Yahweh spoke to me yet again, saying:
6“Because this people has rejected the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah,
7therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many—the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will rise over all its channels and overflow all its banks.
8It will sweep on into Judah, flooding and passing through; it will reach up to the neck. And the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.
9Be shattered, you peoples, and be broken! Give ear, all you distant parts of the earth! Gird yourselves and be broken! Gird yourselves and be broken!
10Devise a plan, and it will be thwarted; speak a word, and it will not stand—for God is with us.
11For thus Yahweh spoke to me, with a strong hand upon me, warning me not to walk in the way of this people, saying:
12“You shall not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy, and what they fear you shall not fear, nor shall you dread it.
13Yahweh of Hosts—him you shall regard as holy; he shall be your fear, and he shall be your dread.
14And he will become a sanctuary, but also a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitant of Jerusalem.
15And many among them will stumble; they will fall and be broken, and be snared and captured.”
16Bind up the testimony; seal the instruction among my disciples.
17I will wait for Yahweh, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.
18Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are for signs and portents in Israel from Yahweh of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
19And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who chirp and mutter”—should not a people inquire of their God? On behalf of the living, should they consult the dead?
20To the instruction and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
21And they will pass through the land, hard-pressed and hungry; and when they are hungry, they will rage and curse their king and their God, and turn their faces upward.
22Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and into thick darkness they will be thrust.
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