Isaiah 6
Easy-to-Read Version
God Calls Isaiah to Be a Prophet
6 In the year that King Uzziah died,[a] I saw the Lord sitting on a very high and wonderful throne. His long robe filled the Temple. 2 Seraph angels stood around him. Each angel had six wings. They used two wings to cover their faces, two wings to cover their bodies, and two wings to fly. 3 The angels were calling to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord All-Powerful. His Glory fills the whole earth.” 4 The sound was so loud that it caused the frame around the door to shake, and the Temple was filled with smoke.[b]
5 I was frightened and said, “Oh, no! I will be destroyed. I am not pure enough to speak to God, and I live among people who are not pure enough to speak to him.[c] But I have seen the King, the Lord All-Powerful.”
6 There was a fire on the altar. One of the Seraph angels used a pair of tongs to take a hot coal from the fire. Then the angel flew to me with it in his hand. 7 Then he touched my mouth with the hot coal and said, “When this hot coal touched your lips, your guilt was taken away, and your sins were erased.[d]”
8 Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Who can I send? Who will go for us?”
So I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
9 Then the Lord said, “Go and tell the people, ‘Listen closely, but don’t understand. Look closely, but don’t learn.’ 10 Confuse them. Make them unable to understand what they hear and see. If you don’t do this, they might really look with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their minds. Then they might come back to me and be healed!”
11 Then I asked, “Lord, how long should I do this?”
He answered, “Do this until the cities are destroyed and all the people are gone. Do this until there is no one left living in the houses and the land is destroyed and empty.”
12 The Lord will make the people go far away, and there will be large areas of empty land in the country. 13 A tenth of the people will be allowed to stay in the land, but it will be destroyed again. They will be like an oak tree. When the tree is chopped down, a stump is left. This stump will be a very special seed that will grow again.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 6:1 year … died This was probably 740 B.C.
- Isaiah 6:4 smoke This showed that God was in the Temple. See Ex. 40:34-35.
- Isaiah 6:5 I am not pure … him Literally, “I am a man of unclean lips and live among people of unclean lips.”
- Isaiah 6:7 erased Or “atoned” or “covered over.”
Isaiah 6
King James Version
6 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
12 And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
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