Isaiah 8:16-9:1

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Disciples of Isaiah

¹⁶ Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples.^{(A) 17} I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.^{(B) 18} See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.^{(C) 19} Now if people say to you, “Consult the ghosts and the familiar spirits that chirp and mutter; should not a people consult their gods, the dead on behalf of the living,^{(D) 20} for teaching and for instruction?” surely those who speak like this will have no dawn!^{(E) 21} They will pass through the land,^[a] greatly distressed and hungry; when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will curse^[b] their king and their gods. They will turn their faces upward,^{(F) 22} or they will look to the earth, but they will see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and they will be thrust into thick darkness.^[c](G)

The Righteous Reign of the Coming King

9 ^[d]But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.^(H)