THE COMING ASSYRIAN INVASION

8 Then the Lord said to me, “Take a large piece of parchmentA and write on it with an ordinary pen:B,a Maher-shalal-hash-baz.C 2 I have appointedD trustworthy witnesses—the priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah.”b

3 I 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, 4 for before the boy knows how to call ‘Father,’ or ‘Mother,’c the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be carried off to the king of Assyria.”d

5 The Lord spoke to me again:

6 Because these people rejected

the slowly flowing water of Shiloah

and rejoiced withE Rezin

and the son of Remaliah,e

7 the 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.

8 It will pour into Judah,

flood over it, and sweep through,

reaching up to the neck;f

and its flooded banksF

will fill your entire land, Immanuel!g

9 Band together,G peoples, and be broken;

pay attention, all you distant lands;

prepare for war, and be broken;

prepare for war, and be broken.

10 Devise a plan; it will fail.h

Make a prediction; it will not happen.

For God is with us.H,i

THE LORD OF ARMIES, THE ONLY REFUGE

11 For this is what the Lord said to me with great power, to keepI me from going the way of this people:j

12 Do not call everything a conspiracy

that these people say is a conspiracy.k

Do not fear what they fear;l

do not be terrified.

13 You are to regard only the Lord of Armies as holy.m

Only he should be feared;n

only he should be held in awe.

14 He will be a sanctuary;o

but for the two houses of Israel,

he will be a stonep to stumble over

and a rock to trip over,q

and a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

15 Many will stumble over these;r

they will fall and be broken;

they will be snared and captured.

16 Bind up the testimony.s

Seal up the instructiont among my disciples.

17 I will wait for the Lord,u

who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.v

I will wait for him.

18 Here I am with the children the Lord has given mew to be signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of Armies who dwells on Mount Zion. 19 When they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who chirp and mutter,”x shouldn’t a people inquire of their God?J Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?y 20 Go to God’s instruction and testimony!z If they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.

21 They 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. 22 They will look toward the earthaa and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.

BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE

9 Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.ab But in the future he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.

2 The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light;ac

a light has dawned

on those living in the land of darkness.ad

3 You have enlarged the nation

and increased its joy.K,ae

The people have rejoiced before you

as they rejoice at harvest time

and as they rejoice when dividing spoils.a

4 For you have shattered their oppressive yokeb

and the rod on their shoulders,

the staff of their oppressor,

just as you did on the day of Midian.c

5 For every trampling boot of battle

and the bloodied garments of war

will be burned as fuel for the fire.

6 For a child will be born for us,

a son will be given to us,d

and the government will be on his shoulders.e

He will be named

Wonderful Counselor,f Mighty God,g

Eternal Father,h Prince of Peace.i

7 The dominion will be vast,

and its prosperity will never end.j

He will reign on the throne of David

and over his kingdom,

to establish and sustain it

with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.

The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.k

THE HAND RAISED AGAINST ISRAEL

8 The Lord sent a message against Jacob;

it came against Israel.

9 All the people—

Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samarial—will know it.

They will say with pride and arrogance,

10 “The bricks have fallen,

but we will rebuild with cut stones;

the sycamores have been cut down,

but we will replace them with cedars.”

11 The Lord has raised up Rezin’s adversaries against him

and stirred up his enemies.

12 Aram from the east and Philistia from the west

have consumed Israel with open mouths.

In all this, his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is still raised to strike.m

13 The people did not turn to him who struck them;

they did not seek the Lord of Armies.

14 So the Lord cut off Israel’s head and tail,n

palm branch and reed in a single day.

15 The head is the elder, the honored one;o

the tail is the prophet, the one teaching lies.p

16 The leaders of the people mislead them,

and those they mislead are swallowed up.A

17 Therefore the Lord does not rejoice

overB Israel’s young men

and has no compassion

on its fatherless and widows,

for everyone is a godless evildoer,q

and every mouth speaks folly.

In all this, his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is still raised to strike.

18 For wickedness burns like a firer

that consumes thorns and briers

and kindles the forest thickets

so that they go up in a column of smoke.

19 The land is scorched

by the wrath of the Lord of Armies,

and the people are like fuel for the fire.s

No one has compassion on his brother.t

20 They carve meat on the right,

but they are still hungry;u

they have eaten on the left,

but they are still not satisfied.

Each one eats the flesh of his arm.v

21 Manasseh eats Ephraim,

and Ephraim, Manasseh;

together, both are against Judah.w

In all this, his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is still raised to strike.x

10 Woey to those enacting crooked statutes

and writing oppressive laws

2 to keep the poor from getting a fair trial

and to deprive the needy among my people of justice,z

so that widows can be their spoil

and they can plunder the fatherless.aa

3 What will you do on the day of punishment

when devastation comes from far away?

Who will you run to for help?

Where will you leave your wealth?

4 There will be nothing to do

except crouch among the prisoners

or fall among the slain.

In all this, his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is still raised to strike.a

ASSYRIA, THE INSTRUMENT OF WRATH

5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger—

the staff in their hands is my wrath.

6 I will send him against a godless nation;

I will command him to go

against a people destined for my rage,

to take spoils, to plunder,b

and to trample them down like clayc in the streets.

7 But this is not what he intends;

this is not what he plans.

It is his intent to destroy

and to cut off many nations.

8 For he says,

“Aren’t all my commanders kings?

9 Isn’t Calno like Carchemish?

Isn’t Hamath like Arpad?

Isn’t Samariad like Damascus?A

10 As my hand seized the kingdoms of worthless images,

kingdoms whose idols exceeded those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

11 and as I did to Samaria and its worthless images

will I not also do to Jerusalem and its idols?”e

JUDGMENT ON ASSYRIA

12 But when the Lord finishes all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “IB will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.”f 13 For he said:

I have done this by my own strength

and wisdom, for I am clever.

I abolished the borders of nations

and plundered their treasures;g

like a mighty warrior, I subjugated the inhabitants.C,h

14 My hand has reached out, as if into a nest,

to seize the wealth of the nations.

Like one gathering abandoned eggs,

I gathered the whole earth.

No wing fluttered;

no beak opened or chirped.

15 Does an ax exalt itself

above the one who chops with it?

Does a saw magnify itself

above the one who saws with it?

It would be like a rod waving the one who liftsD it!

It would be like a staff lifting the one who isn’t wood!

16 Therefore the Lord God of Armies

will inflict an emaciating disease

on the well-fed of Assyria,

and he will kindle a burning fire

under its glory.

17 Israel’s Light will become a fire,

and its Holy One, a flame.i

In one day it will burn and consume Assyria’s thorns and thistles.j

18 He will completely destroy

the glory of its forests and orchards

as a sickness consumes a person.

19 The remaining trees of its forest

will be so few in number

that a child could count them.

THE REMNANT WILL RETURN

20 On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on the one who struck them, but they will faithfully depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.k

21 The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob,

to the Mighty God.

22 Israel, even if your people were as numerous

as the sand of the sea,

only a remnant of them will return.l

Destruction has been decreed;

justice overflows.

23 For throughout the land

the Lord God of Armies

is carrying out a destruction that was decreed.

24 Therefore, the Lord God of Armies says this: “My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, though they strike you with a rod and raise their staff over you as the Egyptians did. 25 In just a little while my wrath will be spent and my anger will turn to their destruction.” 26 And the Lord of Armies will brandish a whip against him as he did when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb;a and he will raise his staff over the sea as he did in Egypt.

GOD WILL JUDGE ASSYRIA

27 On that day

his burden will fall from your shoulders,

and his yoke from your neck.

The yoke will be broken because your neck will be too large.A,b

28 Assyria has come to Aiath

and has gone through Migron,

storing their equipment at Michmash.

29 They crossed over at the ford, saying,

“We will spend the night at Geba.”

The people of Ramah are trembling;

those at Gibeah of Saul have fled.

30 Cry aloud, daughter of Gallim!

Listen, Laishah!

Anathoth is miserable.

31 Madmenah has fled.

The inhabitants of Gebim have sought refuge.

32 Today the Assyrians will stand at Nob,

shaking their fists at the mountain of Daughter Zion,

the hill of Jerusalem.

33 Look, the Lord God of Armies

will chop off the branches with terrifying power,

and the tall trees will be cut down,

the high trees felled.

34 He is clearing the thickets of the forest with an ax,

and Lebanon with its majesty will fall.