Old/New Testament

God's message for King Ahaz

7 Ahaz became the king of Judah. He was the son of Jotham. Jotham was the son of Uzziah.

While Ahaz was Judah's king, King Rezin of Syria and Remaliah's son, King Pekah of Israel, attacked Jerusalem. But they could not get into the city. ² People gave this news to Judah's royal family. They said, ‘The armies of Syria and Ephraim have joined together to attack you.’^[a] When they heard this, Ahaz and his people were very afraid. They shook with fear, like trees in the forest shake in the wind.

³ Then the Lord said to Isaiah, ‘Go out and meet Ahaz. Take your son, Shear-Jashub, with you.^[b] Go to meet Ahaz at the end of the water stream that comes from the higher pool. That is at the field where people wash clothes.

⁴ Say to Ahaz, “Be careful. Do not be upset or afraid. Do not let King Rezin, his people from Syria and Remaliah's son, King Pekah, make you afraid. They are very angry, but their power will soon be useless, like two bits of wood that remain after a fire. ⁵ The rulers of Syria and Ephraim, as well as Remaliah's son, have made plans to attack you. ⁶ They are saying, ‘We must attack Judah. We will frighten the people and we will take their country for ourselves. We will make the son of Tabeel rule there as king.’

⁷ But I, the Almighty Lord, say this: That will never happen! ⁸ The capital city of Syria is Damascus. And the king of Damascus is Rezin. 65 years from now Ephraim will not even be a nation. There will be nothing left! ⁹ The capital city of Ephraim is Samaria. And the king of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you do not continue to trust me, you will not be strong enough to win.” ’

¹⁰ Isaiah also gave this message from the Lord to Ahaz. ¹¹ He said, ‘Ask the Lord your God to do a miracle for you. That will show you that what he has said is true. Ask for anything, deep in the earth or high in the sky.’

¹² But Ahaz said, ‘I will never ask the Lord to do that. I do not want to test him.’

¹³ So Isaiah replied, ‘Now listen, you royal family of David! You cause trouble for people like me. That is bad enough. But now you are trying to cause trouble for God himself. ¹⁴ So the Lord God himself will show you that he speaks a true message. Look, the young woman who has never had sex will become pregnant. She will give birth to a son. She will call his name Immanuel. ¹⁵ One day he will know how to choose good things and refuse to do evil things. By that time there will be cream and honey for him to eat. ¹⁶ Even before that, the two kings that you are now afraid of will have no power. Their land will be empty.

¹⁷ But the Lord will bring even greater trouble to you! It will be very bad for you, for the royal family, and for your people. Nothing as bad will have happened since Ephraim became separate from Judah. Yes, the Lord will bring the king of Assyria to attack you!’

¹⁸ At that time, the Lord will call the soldiers of Egypt to come and attack you. And they will come like a crowd of flies! He will call for soldiers to come from Assyria. And they will come like a crowd of bees! ¹⁹ They will all come in great crowds. They will come into the valleys, the cliffs, the holes in the rocks, the thorn bushes and the pools of water.

²⁰ At that time, the Lord will use the king of Assyria to bring trouble and pain. He will come from beyond the Euphrates river. He will be like a sharp knife that cuts off all your hair, the hair from your head, your legs and your beard.

²¹ At that time, a farmer will have only one young cow and two goats.^{[c] 22} They will give him a lot of milk. So he will have butter and cream to eat. Everyone who remains in the land will have milk and honey as their food. ²³ On that day, in every place where there had been 1,000 valuable vines, there will now be only weeds and thorn bushes. ²⁴ In the whole land there will be only weeds and thorn bushes. So men will go to shoot wild animals there with their bows and arrows. ²⁵ Nobody will go to the fields in the hills, because only thorn bushes grow there. People will be afraid to go there. They will send their cows there to eat grass. Sheep will run over the fields.

God will use Assyria to destroy Israel and Syria

8 The Lord said to me, ‘Get a large board to write on. Then write clear words on it. Write this name: “Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.”^{[d] 2} I will call Uriah the priest and Jeberekiah's son, Zechariah, to come to see this. They are honest people who will say what is true.’

³ Then I slept with my wife, the prophetess. She became pregnant and she gave birth to a son. The Lord said to me, ‘Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. ⁴ Before the child knows how to say “my father” or “my mother”, the king of Assyria will attack Damascus and Samaria. His army will carry away the valuable things from those cities. That is why your son's name must be Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’

⁵ The Lord spoke to me again. ⁶ He said, ‘I have blessed my people, like the quiet stream of Shiloah. But they have not accepted my help. Instead, they are happy that King Rezin and Remaliah's son will help them.

⁷ So I will cause this to happen. I, the Lord God, will bring floods of water from the Euphrates river. That will be the king of Assyria and his powerful armies. They will come like a great river that rises high over its sides. ⁸ Its water will come as a flood into Judah. It will cover the land and it will rise as high as people's necks! He will make his wings very wide to cover all your land, Immanuel.’^[e]

⁹ You foreign nations must listen to this! Join together to fight. Shout as you go to battle. But you will never win! You people from countries that are far away, get ready for war. But you will be completely destroyed! ¹⁰ Decide how you will fight the battle, but your plans will fail! What you decide to do will never happen. God is with us!

The Lord's message to Isaiah

¹¹ Now the Lord spoke to me with great power. He warned me that I must not be like the other people in Judah. He said,

¹² ‘Those people are talking about an agreement to turn against the rulers. But do not agree with what they say. Do not be afraid of the things that frighten them. Do not be afraid, as they are. ¹³ Instead, you should understand that the Lord Almighty has all authority. You should respect him as holy and be afraid of him.

¹⁴ He will be a safe place for you. But for both nations in Israel he will become like a stone that causes people to fall to the ground.^[f] He will be like a rock that makes them fall down. He will take hold of the people who live in Jerusalem, like a trap that catches a bird. ¹⁵ Many people will fall against that rock. They will fall to the ground and it will hurt them. They will become caught in a trap.’

Isaiah's message to his disciples

¹⁶ Tie a string round the paper where I have written this. Keep it safe as a true message. Give it to my disciples, to teach them. ¹⁷ I will wait for the Lord to do what he says. He has turned away from the descendants of Jacob. But I will trust him to do what is right.

¹⁸ Look! Here I am, with the children that the Lord has given to me. We are messages from the Lord Almighty who lives on Mount Zion. We are messages to Israel's people.

¹⁹ They will say to you, ‘Go to the people who speak to the spirits of dead people. Go to the magicians who speak magic words. They will tell you what you should do. People should ask their gods and spirits to give them messages. People who are alive should ask the spirits of dead people to help them.’

²⁰ When they say that to you, remember my teaching. Tell them what I have said will happen. People who talk like that are completely in the dark. There is no truth in what they say. ²¹ Then the people will travel through the land, and they will be sad and hungry. Because of their hunger they will become angry.^[g] They will curse their king and their God, as they look up to the sky. ²² They will look down at the earth, but they will only see trouble. Everywhere will be dark and people will have no hope. Then they will fall into complete darkness.

God has made us alive with Christ

2 Remember how you lived before. You did wrong things and bad things. As a result, you were dead in your spirits. ² You lived in a bad way, like the people who belong to this world. You were obeying Satan, who rules the powerful spirits in the air. Those spirits are working now in everyone who refuses to obey God. ³ At one time, all of us lived like those people. We did whatever bad things our bodies wanted to do. If our thoughts made us want to do something, we did it. Because we were like that, God was angry with us. He should have punished us, just like everyone else.

⁴ But God is very good and kind! He loved us very much. ⁵ Because of our sins, we were dead in our spirits. But God gave us a new life, because we are united with Christ. Yes, God has saved you because he is so kind. ⁶ Also, God raised us up with Christ, so that we now sit with Christ in heaven. God has done this for us because we are united with Christ Jesus. ⁷ He wanted to show, for all future time, how very kind he is. He has helped us so much because of what Christ Jesus has done. ⁸ When you believed in Jesus, God saved you because he is very kind. You could not save yourselves, but that is God's gift to you. ⁹ He has not saved you as a result of any good things that you have done. So nobody has any reason to be proud about it. ¹⁰ It is God who has worked in us to make us what we are. He has given us a new life because we are united with Christ Jesus. He saved us so that now we can do good things in our lives. Those are good things that he has already prepared for us to do.

Christ has brought Jews and Gentiles together

¹¹ So you who were born as Gentiles should remember what you were like before. Jews insulted you because nobody has circumcised you. They themselves are proud that men have circumcised them as God's people. ¹² At that time, you did not know about Christ, God's special Messiah. You did not belong to the nation of Israel's people. You did not know about the good things that God had promised to his people. You were living in this world with nothing good to hope for. You were living without God's help. ¹³ You were far away from God. But now, God has brought you near to himself, because you belong to Christ Jesus. That is possible because of Christ's death on the cross as a sacrifice.

¹⁴ It is Christ himself who has brought peace between Jews and Gentiles. He has brought those two groups together, to be one group. He has destroyed the things that made them separate. As a result, they are no longer enemies. ¹⁵ When his body died on the cross, Christ took away the power of the Jewish laws and rules. In that way, he made the two groups join together as one new group of people. As a result, he caused them to have peace. ¹⁶ As a single group, Christ brought Jews and Gentiles back to God. He stopped them from hating each other. He did this by his death on the cross.

¹⁷ When Christ came, he told people God's good news about peace. He told that message to you Gentiles, who were far away from God. He also told it to us Jews, who were near to God.^{[a] 18} Now we all have received the same Holy Spirit, because of what Christ has done for us. As a result, we can all come near to God the Father.

¹⁹ So now, you Gentiles are not strangers among God's people any more. You belong to the group of God's people that he rules. You belong to God's family, as all God's people do. ²⁰ You are like a house that God is building for himself. God's apostles and his prophets are like the foundation under the house. Jesus Christ is like the most important stone in the house. ²¹ He makes the whole building stand together strongly. In that way, all God's people together become like a special house that belongs to the Lord. ²² Because you belong to Christ, God is building you all together to become his house. That is where God lives by his Spirit.