Isaiah 5-8

Easy-to-Read Version

Judah, God’s Vineyard

5 Now I will sing a song for my friend, my love song about his vineyard.

⁷ The vineyard that belongs to the Lord All-Powerful is the house of Israel. The grapevine, the plant he loves, is the man of Judah.^[b]

⁸ Look at you people! You join houses to houses and fields to fields until there is no room for anyone else. But when the punishment comes, you will be forced to live alone. You will be the only people in the whole land. ⁹ I heard the Lord All-Powerful make this oath: “I swear, all these houses will be destroyed. These big, fancy houses will be empty. ¹⁰ A ten-acre vineyard will make only a little wine,^[c] and many sacks of seed will grow only a little grain.^[d]”

¹¹ How terrible it will be for you people who rise early in the morning and go looking for beer to drink. You stay awake late at night, getting drunk on wine. ¹² At your parties with your wine, harps, drums, flutes, and other musical instruments, you don’t see what the Lord has done. You don’t notice what his hands have made.

¹³ My people don’t really know God. So they will be captured and taken away. Everyone, the respected leaders and the common people as well, will be hungry and thirsty. ¹⁴ They will die, and the place of death will open its mouth wide and swallow many of them. Then the noisy crowds and all the beautiful, happy people who are now so comfortable will go down into the grave.

¹⁵ Everyone, common people and leaders alike, will be humbled. Those who are now so proud will bow their heads in shame. ¹⁶ The Lord All-Powerful will judge fairly, and people will honor him. They will respect the Holy God when he brings justice. ¹⁷ Then sheep will be able to go wherever they want and graze on the land that rich people once owned.

¹⁸ Look at those people! They pull their guilt and sins behind them like people pulling wagons with ropes.^{[e] 19} They say, “We wish God would hurry and do what he plans to do so that we can see it. Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen soon so that we can know what it is.”

²⁰ Look at those people! They say good is bad and bad is good. They think light is dark and dark is light. They think sour is sweet and sweet is sour. ²¹ They think they are so smart. They think they are very intelligent. ²² They are famous for drinking wine and are heroes known for mixing drinks. ²³ And if you pay them enough money, they will forgive a criminal. But they will not let good people be judged fairly. ²⁴ So bad things will happen to them. Their descendants will be destroyed completely, just as fire burns straw and leaves. Their descendants will be like plants with rotten roots, whose flowers have all blown away like dust in the wind.

Those people refused to obey the teachings^[f] of the Lord All-Powerful. They hated the message from the Holy One of Israel. ²⁵ So the Lord became angry with his people, and he raised his hand to punish them. Even the mountains shook with fear. Dead bodies were left in the streets like garbage. And he is not finished yet. He is still angry, and his arm is raised to continue punishing his people.

God Will Bring Armies to Punish Israel

²⁶ Look! God is giving a sign to the nations far away. He is raising a flag and whistling for them to come.

Now the enemy is coming from a faraway land and will soon enter the country. They are moving very quickly. ²⁷ The enemy soldiers never get tired and stumble. They never get sleepy and fall asleep. Their weapon belts are always ready. Their sandal straps never break. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharp. Their bows are strung and ready to shoot. The horses’ hooves are as hard as flint. Clouds of dust rise from behind their chariots.

²⁹ The shouts of the enemy sound like the roar of lions. Like strong, young lions, they growl and grab their prey. The captives struggle and try to escape, but there is no one to save them. ³⁰ Then there is a roar as loud as the ocean waves, and the captives turn their faces to the ground. And there is only darkness closing in as the light fades away in a black cloud.

God Calls Isaiah to Be a Prophet

6 In the year that King Uzziah died,^[g] 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.^[h]

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.^[i] 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.^[j]”

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.

Trouble With Aram

7 Ahaz was the son of Jotham, who was the son of Uzziah. Rezin was the king of Aram, Pekah son of Remaliah^[k] was the king of Israel. When Ahaz was king of Judah, Rezin and Pekah went up to Jerusalem to attack it, but they were not able to defeat the city.^[l]

² The family of David received a message that said, “The armies of Aram and Ephraim have joined together in one camp.” When King Ahaz heard this message, he and the people became frightened. They shook with fear like trees of the forest blowing in the wind.

³ Then the Lord told Isaiah, “You and your son Shear Jashub^[m] should go out and talk to Ahaz. Go to the place where the water flows into the Upper Pool,^[n] on the street that leads up to Laundryman’s Field.

⁴ “Tell Ahaz, ‘Be careful, but be calm. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let those two men, Rezin and Remaliah’s son,^[o] frighten you! They are like two burning sticks. They might be hot now, but soon they will be nothing but smoke. Rezin, Aram, and Remaliah’s son became angry ⁵ and made plans against you. They said, ⁶ “Let’s go fight against Judah and divide it among ourselves. Then we will make Tabeel’s son the new king of Judah.”’”

⁷ But the Lord God says, “Their plan will not succeed. It will not happen ⁸ because Aram depends on its capital Damascus, and Damascus is led by its weak king Rezin. And don’t worry about Ephraim. Within 65 years it will be crushed, no longer a nation. ⁹ Ephraim depends on its capital Samaria, and Samaria is led by Remaliah’s son. So you have no reason to fear. Believe this, or you will not survive.”

Immanuel—God Is With Us

¹⁰ Then the Lord spoke to Ahaz again ¹¹ and said, “Ask for a sign from the Lord your God to prove to yourself that this is true. You can ask for any sign you want. The sign can come from a place as deep as Sheol^[p] or as high as the skies.^[q]”

¹² But Ahaz said, “I will not ask for a sign as proof. I will not test the Lord.”

¹³ Then Isaiah said, “Family of David, listen very carefully! Is it not enough that you would test the patience of humans? Will you now test the patience of my God? ¹⁴ But the Lord will still show you this sign:

¹⁷ “But the Lord will bring troubled times to you. These troubles will be worse than anything that has happened since the time Israel separated from Judah. This will happen to your people and to your father’s family when God brings the king of Assyria to fight against you.

¹⁸ “At that time the Lord will call for the ‘Fly’ that is now near the streams of Egypt, and he will call for the ‘Bee’ that is now in the country of Assyria. Those enemies will come to your country. ¹⁹ They will settle in the deep valleys and in the caves, by the thornbushes and watering holes. ²⁰ The Lord will use Assyria to punish Judah. Assyria will be hired and used like a razor to shave off Judah’s beard and to remove the hair from his head and body.^[u]

²¹ “At that time someone might keep only one young cow and two sheep alive. ²² But there will be enough milk for them to eat milk curds. In fact, everyone left in the country will eat milk curds and honey. ²³ There are now fields that have 1000 grapevines, and each grapevine is worth 1000 pieces of silver. But those fields will be covered with weeds and thorns. ²⁴ That land will be wild and used only as a hunting ground where people go with bows and arrows. ²⁵ People once worked the soil and grew food on these hills, but at that time they will not go there, because the fields will be covered with weeds and thorns. It will be a place where cattle graze and sheep wander.”

Assyria Is Coming Soon

8 The Lord told me, “Get a large scroll,^[v] and use an ordinary pen^[w] to write these words: ‘This is for Maher Shalal Hash Baz.’^[x]”

² I found some men who could be trusted to serve as witnesses: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah. They watched me write those words. ³ Then I went to my wife, the woman prophet. She became pregnant and had a son. The Lord told me, “Name the boy Maher Shalal Hash Baz.” ⁴ He said that because before the boy learns to say “Mama” and “Daddy,” God will take all the wealth and riches from Damascus^[y] and Samaria and give them to the king of Assyria.

⁵ The Lord spoke to me again. ⁶ He said, “These people^[z] refuse to accept the slow-moving waters of Shiloah.^[aa] They prefer Rezin and Remaliah’s son.” ⁷ But the Lord will bring the king of Assyria and all his power against them. The Assyrians will come like their swift moving river, like water that rises and spills over its banks. ⁸ This water will be like a flash flood as it passes through Judah. It will rise to Judah’s throat and almost drown him.

But he will spread his wings over your whole country, Immanuel.^[ab]

Warnings to Isaiah

¹¹ The Lord spoke to me with his great power and warned^[ad] me not to be like these people. He said, ¹² “Don’t think there is a plan against you just because the people say there is. Don’t be afraid of what they fear. Don’t let them frighten you!”

¹³ The Lord All-Powerful is the one you should fear. He is the one you should respect.^[ae] He is the one who should frighten you. ¹⁴ If you people would respect him, he would be a safe place^[af] for you. But you don’t respect him, so he is like a stone that you stumble over. He is a rock that makes both families of Israel fall. He has become a trap that all the people of Jerusalem will fall into. ¹⁵ (Many people will trip over this rock. They will fall and be broken. They will be caught in the trap.)

¹⁶ The Lord said, “Write this agreement.^[ag] Tie it up and seal it so that it cannot be changed. Give these teachings to my followers for safekeeping.”

¹⁸ Here I am with the children the Lord has given me. We are here as signs from the Lord All-Powerful, who lives on Mount Zion. He is using us to show his plans for the people of Israel.

¹⁹ The people will say, “Go to the fortunetellers and wizards who mumble and chirp like birds. Ask them what to do.” But I say, “Shouldn’t people go to their God for help? Why go to the dead to get help for the living?” ²⁰ You should follow the teachings and the agreement.^[ah] I swear, if you follow those other things, there is no future for you. ²¹ When the enemy comes, there will be hard times and hunger. And when he becomes hungry, he will become angry. He will say curses in the name of his king and his gods. Then he will lift his head upwards like a roaring lion. ²² And when the captives turn their faces to the ground, there is only a depressing darkness closing in—the dark sadness of people forced to leave their country.