The Sending of Isaiah. 1In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. 2Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they hovered. 3One cried out to the other:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
4At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.
5Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”
8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!” 9And he replied: Go and say to this people:
Listen carefully, but do not understand!
Look intently, but do not perceive!
10Make the heart of this people sluggish,
dull their ears and close their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,
and their heart understand,
and they turn and be healed.
11“How long, O Lord?” I asked. And he replied:
Until the cities are desolate,
without inhabitants,
Houses, without people,
and the land is a desolate waste.
12Until the Lord sends the people far away,
and great is the desolation in the midst of the land.
13If there remain a tenth part in it,
then this in turn shall be laid waste;
As with a terebinth or an oak
whose trunk remains when its leaves have fallen.
Holy offspring is the trunk.
Crisis in Judah. 1In the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, son of Remaliah, went up to attack Jerusalem, but they were not able to conquer it. 2When word came to the house of David that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of the king and heart of the people trembled, as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.
3Then the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field, 4and say to him: Take care you remain calm and do not fear; do not let your courage fail before these two stumps of smoldering brands, the blazing anger of Rezin and the Arameans and of the son of Remaliah— 5because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you. They say, 6“Let us go up against Judah, tear it apart, make it our own by force, and appoint the son of Tabeel king there.”
7Thus says the Lord God:
It shall not stand, it shall not be!
8The head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin;
9The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
Within sixty-five years,
Ephraim shall be crushed, no longer a nation.
Unless your faith is firm,
you shall not be firm!
Emmanuel. 10Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: 11Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as Sheol, or high as the sky! 12But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” 13Then he said: Listen, house of David! Is it not enough that you weary human beings? Must you also weary my God? 14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel. 15Curds and honey he will eat so that he may learn to reject evil and choose good; 16for before the child learns to reject evil and choose good, the land of those two kings whom you dread shall be deserted.
17The Lord shall bring upon you and your people and your father’s house such days as have not come since Ephraim seceded from Judah (the king of Assyria). 18On that day
The Lord shall whistle
for the fly in the farthest streams of Egypt,
and for the bee in the land of Assyria.
19All of them shall come and settle
in the steep ravines and in the rocky clefts,
on all thornbushes and in all pastures.
20On that day the Lord shall shave with the razor hired from across the River (the king of Assyria) the head, and the hair of the feet; it shall also shave off the beard.
21On that day a man shall keep alive a young cow or a couple of sheep, 22and from their abundant yield of milk he shall eat curds; curds and honey shall be the food of all who are left in the land. 23On that day every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand pieces of silver shall become briers and thorns. 24One shall have to go there with bow and arrows, for all the country shall be briers and thorns. 25But as for all the hills which were hoed with a mattock, for fear of briers and thorns you will not go there; they shall become a place for cattle to roam and sheep to trample.