Isaiah's Call and Mission
61In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet. With two they flew. 3One called to another and said,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies!
The whole earth is full of his glory!
4The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of the one who called, and the temple was filled with smoke.
5Then I said, “I am doomed![] I am ruined, because I am a man with unclean lips, and I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies!” 6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, carrying a glowing coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7He touched my mouth with the coal and said, “Look, this has touched your lips, so your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”
8Then I heard the Lord's voice, saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
9He said:
Go! You are to tell this people,
“Keep listening, but you will never understand.
Keep looking, but you will never get it.”
10Make the heart of this people calloused.[] Make their ears deaf[] and blind their eyes, so that they do not see with their eyes,
or hear with their ears,
or understand with their hearts,
and turn again and be healed.
11Then I said, “Lord, how long?”
He answered:
Until the cities are a wasteland without a single inhabitant,
until the houses are totally deserted,
and the farmland is completely devastated,
12until the Lord has removed the people far away,
and the abandoned places within the land are many.
13If there is only a tenth left in it, that too will be burned in its turn.
Like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains when it is cut down,
so the holy seed is its stump.[] Immanuel Is the Answer to Judah's Hardness
71This is what took place in the days when Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah. Rezin king of Aram,[] and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, marched up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not capture it. 2The house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim.” The heart of Ahaz trembled, and the heart of his people trembled as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.
3Then the Lord said to Isaiah:
Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear Jashub.[] Meet him at the end of the water channel from the upper pool, on the road that goes to the launderer's[] field. 4Tell Ahaz, “Get control of yourself, and remain calm. Do not be afraid. Do not lose your courage because of these two stubs of smoldering torches. Do not be afraid because of the fierce anger of Rezin, Aram, and the son of Remaliah, 5even though Aram, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you and said, 6‘Let's go up against Judah and tear it apart. Let's divide it among ourselves and set up a king over it, namely, this son of Tabe'el.’”
7This is what the Lord God says.
Their plan shall not succeed.
It shall not take place.
8Yes, the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin,
but within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken into pieces,
so that it will no longer be a people.
9The head of Ephraim is only Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah's son.
If you do not stand firm in faith,
you will not stand at all.[] 