1. The LORD said to me, "Get yourself a large sheet and write on it in common script 'For Maher-shalal-hash-baz';
2. and call reliable witnesses, the priest Uriah and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah, to witness for Me."
3. I was intimate with the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son; and the LORD said to me, "Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
4. For before the boy learns to call 'Father' and 'Mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, and the delights of Rezin and of the son of Remaliah, shall be carried off before the king of Assyria."
5. Again the LORD spoke to me, thus:
6. "Because that people has spurned The gently flowing waters of Siloam" --
7. Assuredly, My Lord will bring up against them The mighty, massive waters of the Euphrates, The king of Assyria and all his multitude. It shall rise above all its channels, And flow over all its beds,
8. And swirl through Judah like a flash flood Reaching up to the neck. But with us is God, Whose wings are spread As wide as your land is broad!
9. Band together, O peoples -- you shall be broken! Listen to this, you remotest parts of the earth: Gird yourselves -- you shall be broken; Gird yourselves -- you shall be broken!
10. Hatch a plot -- it shall be foiled; Agree on action -- it shall not succeed. For with us is God!
11. For this is what the LORD said to me, when He took me by the hand and charged me not to walk in the path of that people:
12. "You must not call conspiracy All that that people calls conspiracy, Nor revere what it reveres, Nor hold it in awe.
13. None but the LORD of Hosts Shall you account holy; Give reverence to Him alone, Hold Him alone in awe.
14. He shall be for a sanctuary, A stone men strike against: A rock men stumble over For the two Houses of Israel, And a trap and a snare for those Who dwell in Jerusalem.
15. The masses shall trip over these And shall fall and be injured, Shall be snared and be caught.
16. Bind up the message, Seal the instruction with My disciples."
17. So I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding His face from the House of Jacob, and I will trust in Him.
18. Here stand I and the children the LORD has given me as signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
19. Now, should people say to you, "Inquire of the ghosts and familiar spirits that chirp and moan; for a people may inquire of its divine beings -- of the dead on behalf of the living --
20. for instruction and message," surely, for one who speaks thus there shall be no dawn.
21. And he shall go about in it wretched and hungry; and when he is hungry, he shall rage and revolt against his king and his divine beings. He may turn his face upward
22. or he may look below, but behold, Distress and darkness, with no daybreak; Straitness and gloom, with no dawn.
23. For if there were to be any break of day for that [land] which is in straits, only the former [king] would have brought abasement to the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali -- while the later one would have brought honor to the Way of the Sea, the other side of the Jordan, and Galilee of the Nations.
| 
