The Hebrew Prophets

And I say, `Till when, O Lord?' And He saith, `Surely till cities have been wasted without inhabitant, And houses without man, And the ground be wasted--a desolation,

And Jehovah hath put man far off, And great is the forsaken part in the heart of the land.

And yet in it a tenth, and it hath turned, And hath been for a burning, As a teil-tree, and as an oak, that in falling, Have substance in them, The holy seed is its substance!'

And it cometh to pass in the days of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, gone up hath Rezin king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, to Jerusalem, to battle against it, and he is not able to fight against it.

And it is declared to the house of David, saying, `Aram hath been led towards Ephraim,' And his heart and the heart of his people is moved, like the moving of trees of a forest by the presence of wind.

And Jehovah saith unto Isaiah, `Go forth, I pray thee, to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-Jashub thy son, unto the end of the conduit of the upper pool, unto the highway of the fuller's field,

and thou hast said unto him: `Take heed, and be quiet, fear not, And let not thy heart be timid, Because of these two tails of smoking brands, For the fierceness of the anger of Rezin and Aram, And the son of Remaliah.

Because that Aram counselled against thee evil, Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying:

We go up into Judah, and we vex it, And we rend it unto ourselves, And we cause a king to reign in its midst--The son of Tabeal.

Thus said the Lord Jehovah: It doth not stand, nor shall it be!

For the head of Aram is Damascus, And the head of Damascus is Rezin, And within sixty and five years Is Ephraim broken from being a people.

And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, And the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If ye do not give credence, Surely ye are not stedfast.'

And Jehovah addeth to speak unto Ahaz, saying:

`Ask for thee a sign from Jehovah thy God, Make deep the request, or make it high upwards.'

And Ahaz saith, `I do not ask nor try Jehovah.'

And he saith, `Hear, I pray you, O house of David, Is it a little thing for you to weary men, That ye weary also my God?

Therefore the Lord Himself giveth to you a sign, Lo, the Virgin is conceiving, And is bringing forth a son, And hath called his name Immanuel,

Butter and honey he doth eat, When he knoweth to refuse evil, and to fix on good.

For before the youth doth know To refuse evil, and to fix on good, Forsaken is the land thou art vexed with, because of her two kings.

Jehovah bringeth on thee, and on thy people, And on the house of thy father, Days that have not come, Even from the day of the turning aside of Ephraim from Judah, By the king of Asshur.

And it hath come to pass, in that day, Jehovah doth hiss for a fly that is in the extremity of the brooks of Egypt, And for a bee that is in the land of Asshur.

And they have come, and rested all of them in the desolate valleys, And in holes of the rocks, and on all the thorns, And on all the commendable things.

In that day doth the Lord shave, By a razor that is hired beyond the river, By the king of Asshur, The head, and the hair of the feet, Yea, also the beard it consumeth.

And it hath come to pass, in that day, A man keepeth alive a heifer of the herd, And two of the flock,

And it hath come to pass, From the abundance of the yielding of milk he eateth butter, For butter and honey doth every one eat Who is left in the heart of the land.