Isaiah 7

³⁷(In those days the Lord began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah.)

¹In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham became king of Judah.

⁴and say to him: Calm down and be quiet. Do not be afraid or disheartened over these two smoldering stubs of firewood—over the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.

⁵For Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has plotted your ruin, saying:

⁶“Because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoiced in Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

³With cunning they scheme against Your people and conspire against those You cherish,

⁴saying, “Come, let us erase them as a nation; may the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

⁹Huddle together, O peoples, and be shattered; pay attention, all you distant lands; prepare for battle, and be shattered; prepare for battle, and be shattered!

¹⁰Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”

¹²“Do not call conspiracy everything these people regard as conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear; do not live in dread.

¹³Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God as well?

⁹All the people will know it—Ephraim and the dwellers of Samaria. With pride and arrogance of heart they will say:

¹The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

⁶For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us.”

⁷Thus the Arameans had arisen and fled at twilight, abandoning their tents and horses and donkeys. The camp was intact, and they had run for their lives.

³⁵‘I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

¹⁷Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced up to Jerusalem and stationed themselves by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

¹³And though a tenth remains in the land, it will be burned again. As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when felled, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land.”

²¹A remnant will return—a remnant of Jacob—to the Mighty God.

¹⁵Go to Pharaoh in the morning as you see him walking out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.

⁴Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

²⁶It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

³saying to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be alarmed or terrified because of them.

⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come.

¹⁵For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence—but you were not willing.”

²And the Lord said to Satan: “The Lord rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”

³With cunning they scheme against Your people and conspire against those You cherish,

⁴saying, “Come, let us erase them as a nation; may the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

¹⁵but I am fiercely angry with the nations that are at ease. For I was a little angry, but they have added to the calamity.’

²The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the Lord and against His Anointed One:

¹¹From you, O Nineveh, comes forth a plotter of evil against the Lord, a counselor of wickedness.

¹⁰Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”

³⁷Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it?

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

¹¹I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, and I will surely do it.

¹¹The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the purposes of His heart to all generations.

³⁰There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the Lord.

²⁵You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

²⁶The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One.’

¹This is the burden against Damascus: “Behold, Damascus is no longer a city; it has become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be left to the flocks, which will lie down with no one to fear.

¹⁵During the night, Abram divided his forces and routed Chedorlaomer’s army, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus.

⁶Then he placed garrisons in Aram of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to David and brought him tribute. So the Lord made David victorious wherever he went.

⁶Gomer again conceived and gave birth to a daughter, and the Lord said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I should ever forgive them.

⁷Yet I will have compassion on the house of Judah, and I will save them—not by bow or sword or war, not by horses and cavalry, but by the Lord their God.”

⁵Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

⁴For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

²⁰That is correct: They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.

²⁰Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

¹⁰Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him; whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about His Son.

²⁵So take courage, men, for I believe God that it will happen just as He told me.

⁶“Because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoiced in Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

⁷the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.

⁵And the Lord spoke to me further:

⁵Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.

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

²Now they sin more and more and make for themselves cast images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. People say of them, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves!”

¹³Bring your worthless offerings no more; your incense is detestable to Me. New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations—I cannot endure iniquity in a solemn assembly.

³⁰And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

⁷This will be a sign to you from the Lord that He will do what He has promised:

⁸I will make the sun’s shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.

²⁹And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³⁶Then Gideon said to God, “If You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said,

³⁷then behold, I will place a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”

²²And Hezekiah had asked, “What will be the sign that I will go up to the house of the Lord?”

⁸Now Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?”

⁹And Isaiah had replied, “This will be a sign to you from the Lord that He will do what He has promised: Would you like the shadow to go forward ten steps, or back ten steps?”

¹⁵Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering and grain offering, as well as the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings of all the people of the land. Splatter on the altar all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar to seek guidance.”

⁹“How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?” Peter replied. “Look, the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

³¹So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain.

¹⁵So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”

¹⁶Do not test the Lord your God as you tested Him at Massah.

²²In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord.

²⁴You have not bought Me sweet cane with your silver, nor satisfied Me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened Me with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities.

¹⁷You have wearied the Lord with your words; yet you ask, “How have we wearied Him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and in them He delights,” or, “Where is the God of justice?”

¹⁰Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’

¹¹But I am full of the Lord’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old alike.

¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

⁴⁷And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were.

²³“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”).

⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

³¹Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus.

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

²He was with God in the beginning.

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

³⁵The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

²²and from the abundance of milk they give, he will eat curds; for all who remain in the land will eat curds and honey.

¹⁵Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

⁹And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,

¹⁰so that you may be able to test and prove what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

⁴John wore a garment of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

⁹Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good.

⁵Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

⁴For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

³⁹And the little ones you said would become captives—your children who on that day did not know good from evil—will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it.

⁹So the king of Assyria responded to him, marched up to Damascus, and captured it. He took its people to Kir as captives and put Rezin to death.

⁹Ephraim will be laid waste on the day of rebuke. Among the tribes of Israel I proclaim what is certain.

³This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they threshed Gilead with sledges of iron.

⁴So I will send fire upon the house of Hazael to consume the citadels of Ben-hadad.

²⁹In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and he took the people as captives to Assyria.

³⁰Then Hoshea son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah son of Remaliah. In the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah, Hoshea attacked Pekah, killed him, and reigned in his place.

⁷the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.

⁸It will pour into Judah, swirling and sweeping over it, reaching up to the neck; its spreading streams will cover your entire land, O Immanuel!

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

¹In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

¹¹So the Lord brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

¹After all these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself.

²When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come to make war against Jerusalem,

⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jehoiakim and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon some of the articles from the house of the Lord, and he put them in his temple in Babylon.

²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

⁴⁴Then the Amorites who lived in the hills came out against you and chased you like a swarm of bees. They routed you from Seir all the way to Hormah.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the Lord.

²⁰Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet against them until even the survivors hiding from you have perished.

¹²I sent the hornet ahead of you, and it drove out the two Amorite kings before you, but not by your own sword or bow.

¹²They swarmed around me like bees, but they were extinguished like burning thorns; in the name of the Lord I cut them off.

¹⁹Men will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground, away from the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth.

¹⁶But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.

²¹They will flee to caverns in the rocks and crevices in the cliffs, away from the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth.

¹⁷They will lick the dust like a snake, like reptiles slithering on the ground. They will come trembling from their strongholds in the presence of the Lord our God; they will tremble in fear of You.

¹¹So the Lord brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

⁷the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.

¹⁸“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre. Every head was made bald and every shoulder made raw. But he and his army received no wages from Tyre for the labor they expended on it.

¹“As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.

²When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.

¹⁵Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it, or a staff lifting him who is not wood!

⁶So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have even made the beasts of the field subject to him.

⁷All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

¹Behold, the Lord lays waste the earth and leaves it in ruins. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants—

²people and priest alike, servant and master, maid and mistress, buyer and seller, lender and borrower, creditor and debtor.

¹⁷Lambs will graze as in their own pastures, and strangers will feed in the ruins of the wealthy.

¹⁰But Nebuzaradan left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who had no property, and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be left to the flocks, which will lie down with no one to fear.

³⁰And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

²⁵For fear of the briers and thorns, you will no longer traverse the hills once tilled by the hoe; they will become places for oxen to graze and sheep to trample.

¹⁵By the time He knows enough to reject evil and choose good, He will be eating curds and honey.

⁴John wore a garment of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

²⁹honey, curds, sheep, and cheese from the herd for David and his people to eat. For they said, “The people have become hungry, exhausted, and thirsty in the wilderness.”

⁶I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”

¹¹Solomon had a vineyard in Baal-hamon. He leased it to the tenants. For its fruit, each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver.

¹²But my own vineyard is mine to give; the thousand shekels are for you, O Solomon, and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit.

³³Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.

⁸But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned.

²⁶I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert. All its cities were torn down before the Lord, before His fierce anger.

¹²Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines,

¹³and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.

³Take your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out into the field to hunt some game for me.

²⁰She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.

²¹But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be left to the flocks, which will lie down with no one to fear.

¹⁷Lambs will graze as in their own pastures, and strangers will feed in the ruins of the wealthy.

²¹On that day a man will raise a young cow and two sheep,

²²and from the abundance of milk they give, he will eat curds; for all who remain in the land will eat curds and honey.

⁶So the seacoast will become a land of pastures, with wells for shepherds and folds for sheep.