1 Then the Lord told me, “Get a large tablet and write on it in with an ordinary pen, ‘Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’* 2 I will need Uriah the priest and Zechariah, son of Jeberekiah, to be my trustworthy witnesses.”

3 Then I slept with my wife† the prophetess, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. The Lord told me, “Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 4 For even before the boy knows how to say ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mommy,’ the king of Assyria will carry off Damascus' wealth and Samaria's possessions.”

5 Then the Lord spoke to me again, saying, 6 “Because this people has rejected the waters of Shiloah that gently flow and instead have rejoiced with Rezin and Remaliah's son,‡ 7 the Lord is going to bring the powerful floodwaters of the Euphrates River against them—the king of Assyria with all his glorious army. It will flood all its channels and overflow all its banks. 8 It will sweep on into Judah, overflowing and flooding through, reaching up to the neck. Like outspread wings it will engulf the whole of your land, Immanuel!

9 Pay attention,§ you nations, and be smashed! Listen, all you distant lands, get ready, but you will be smashed. Get ready, but you will be smashed. 10 You can plan your strategy, but it will be foiled; you can say what you're intending, but it won't happen, for God is with us.”

11 For this is what the Lord told me, holding me with a strong hand, instructing me not to follow the way of this people. He said, 12 Don't call a conspiracy everything that these people call a conspiracy. Don't fear what they fear. Don't be overawed! 13 The Lord Almighty is the one you should see as holy. He is the one you should fear, he is the one you should be in awe of. 14 He will be a sanctuary for you. But to the royal families of both Israel and Judah he will be a stone they trip over and a rock that makes them stumble, a trap and a snare to the people who live in Jerusalem. 15 Many people will stumble over them. They will fall and be broken. They will be trapped and caught. 16 Safeguard this testimony, seal these instructions—they are for my disciples.

17 I will wait for the Lord, the one who is hiding his face from Jacob's descendants. I will wait in hope for him.

18 Look, I'm here, together with the children the Lord has given me. They are signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who lives on Mount Zion.

19 When someone suggests to you, “Go and ask mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter,” shouldn't people ask their God? Why should they ask the dead on behalf of the living? 20 Go and examine God's law and his instructions! If what they say doesn't correspond with God's word, there will be no dawn for them.* 21 They will wander round the country, depressed and hungry. When they are starving they will become furious, and looking up they will curse their king and their God. 22 Then they will look towards the earth and see only misery and gloom and agonizing depression, and they will be thrown out into the darkness.