Isaiah 8:16-9:1

New Living Translation

¹⁶Preserve the teaching of God;
    entrust his instructions to those who follow me.
¹⁷I will wait for the Lord,
    who has turned away from the descendants of Jacob.
    I will put my hope in him.

¹⁸I and the children the Lord has given me serve as signs and warnings to Israel from the Lord of Heaven’s Armies who dwells in his Temple on Mount Zion.

¹⁹Someone may say to you, “Let’s ask the mediums and those who consult the spirits of the dead. With their whisperings and mutterings, they will tell us what to do.” But shouldn’t people ask God for guidance? Should the living seek guidance from the dead?

²⁰Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark. ²¹They will go from one place to another, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rage and curse their king and their God. They will look up to heaven ²²and down at the earth, but wherever they look, there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. They will be thrown out into the darkness.

Hope in the Messiah

9 ^[a]Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory.