Isaiah

8 And Yahweh said unto me: Take thee a large tablet,—and write thereon in plain characters, To Maher-shalal-hash-baz. [“Speed-spoil-hurry-prey.”]

2 That I may take in attestation, faithful witnesses,—even Uriah the priest, and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.

3 Then approached I unto the prophetess, and she conceived and bare a son,—and Yahweh said unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

4 For before the boy shall have knowledge to cry, My father! and My mother! the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.

5 And again Yahweh spake unto me yet further saying:

6 Because this people hath refused the waters of Shiloah which flow softly,—and are rejoicing with Rezin and the son of Remaliah

7 now therefore lo! the Lord is about to bring up against them the waters, strong and many, of the River [Euphrates], even the king of Assyria and all his glory,—and he shall rise over all his channels, and flow over all his banks;

8 and roll on throughout Judah—overflow and pass along, till unto the neck he shall reach,—and it shall be that the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel!

9 Rage, O ye peoples,—and be overthrown, And give ear, all ye distant parts of the earth,—Gird yourselves and be overthrown, Gird yourselves and be overthrown:

10 Determine a plan—and it shall be frustrated,—Speak a word, and it shall not stand, For With-us-is-God!

11 For thus spake Yahweh unto me like a firm grasp of the hand,—when he admonished me not to walk in the way of this people saying:

12 Ye shall not say—A confederacy! of everything of which this people may say, A confederacy! And their fear shall ye not fear or regard as awful:

13 Yahweh of hosts him shall ye hallow,—And let him be your fear and let him inspire you with awe;

14 So shall he become a hallowed asylum,—But a stone to strike against and a rock to stumble over unto both houses of Israel, A trap and a snare to the dweller in Jerusalem;

15 And many shall stumble among them,—and fall and be torn, and snared and captured.

16 Bind thou up the testimony,—Seal the instruction amongst my disciples.

17 I will therefore long for Yahweh, Who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob,—And will wait for him.

18 Lo! I and the children whom Yahweh hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel,—from Yahweh of hosts, who is making his habitation in Mount Zion.

19 But when they say unto you—Seek ye unto the necromancers and unto the wizards, who chirp and who mutter Should not a people seek unto its God? In behalf of the living [should it seek] unto the dead?

20 To the law and to the testimony! If they speak not according to this word [It is] because they have no dawning day.

21 Therefore shall they pass through it hard pressed and hungry,—And it shall be when they hunger then will they rage and revile their king and their god and turn their faces upwards;

22 And unto the land shall they look hard, And lo! distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish driven away!