¹And the Lord said to me, “Get yourself a large tablet, and write on it with a stylus of a common man, ‘For Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ” ²And I took faithful witnesses to be witnesses for me: Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. ³And I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son, and the Lord said to me, “Call him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ⁴For before the boy knows how to shout, ‘My father’, or, ‘My mother’, an army will carry away the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria.” ⁵The Lord spoke to me yet again and said,

⁶“Since this people rejects the waters of Shiloah,

Which flow gently,

And rejoices in Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

⁷You will see the Lord^* bringing up over them

The mighty and massive waters of the river

– The king of Assyria and all his glory –

And he will come up through all his channels

And overflow all his banks.

⁸And he will pass through Judah,

Inundating and crossing through,

Coming up to the neck.

And he will spread his wings

Over the full width of your land, Immanuel.

⁹Do harm, you various peoples,

And come to harm.

So listen, all you distant parts of the earth,

Gird yourselves,

And come to harm;

Gird yourselves,

And come to harm.

¹⁰Take counsel,

But it will be frustrated.

Speak a word,

But it will not stand,

For God is with us.”

¹¹For this is what the Lord said to me, as a shot in the arm, and he warned me against walking in the way of this people and said,

¹²“You shall not say, ‘A conspiracy’,

To everything where the people say, ‘A conspiracy.’

¹³Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself,

For he is to be your fearfulness,

And he is to be your trepidation.

¹⁴And he will become a sanctuary,

To the two houses of Israel,

And a trap and a snare

To the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁵And many will stumble at them,

And they will fall and be broken,

And be ensnared and be caught.

¹⁶Bind up the testimony;

Seal the law among those who learn from me.”

¹⁷And I will wait for the Lord,

Who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob,

And I will confide in him.

As signs and as miracles in Israel

From the Lord of hosts,

Who dwells in Mount Zion.

¹⁹“Now when they say to you, ‘Seek the necromancers and the wizards, who whisper and who mutter’, say, ‘Should not a people seek their God? Does one really turn to the dead for the benefit of the living?’ ²⁰If they do not speak in accordance with the law and the testimony – so these words – it is because they do not have a glimmer of reason. ²¹And one will pass through the land suffering hardship, and hungry, and it will come to pass when he is hungry that he will become angry and curse his king and his God, and he will turn to things above, ²²and he will look to the earth, and he will find adversity, and darkness and oppressive gloom, and repulsive murkiness.

Reference(s) in Chapter 8: v.12 ↔ 1 Peter 3:14 ● v.13 ↔ 1 Peter 3:15 ● v.14 ↔ Romans 9:33, 1 Peter 2:8 ● v.15 ↔ Matthew 24:10 ● v.18 ↔ Hebrews 2:13.