¹Adonai said to me, “Take a large tablet, and write on it in easily readable letters; ‘Maher shalal, hash baz [the spoil hurries, the prey speeds along].’”

²I had it witnessed for me by reliable witnesses — Uriyah the cohen and Z’kharyahu the son of Y’verekhyahu.

³Then I had sexual relations with my wife; she became pregnant and gave birth to a son; and Adonai said to me, “Name him Maher Shalal Hash Baz;

⁴because before the child knows how to cry, ‘Abba !’ and ‘Eema !’, the riches of Dammesek and the spoil of Shomron will be carried off and given to the king of Ashur.”

⁵Adonai went on speaking and said more to me:

⁶“Since this people has rejected

the gently flowing waters from Shilo’ach

and takes joy in Retzin and the son of Remalyah;

⁷now Adonai will bring upon them

the mighty floodwaters of the [Euphrates] River —

that is, the king of Ashur and his power.

It will rise above all its channels

and overflow all its banks.

⁸It will sweep through Y’hudah,

flooding everything and passing on.

It will reach even up to the neck,

and its outspread wings

will fill the whole expanse of the land.”

God is with us!

⁹You may make an uproar, peoples;

but you will be shattered.

Listen, all of you from distant lands:

arm yourselves, but you will be shattered;

yes, arm yourselves,

but you will be shattered;

¹⁰devise a plan, but it will come to nothing;

say anything you like, but it won’t happen;

because God is with us .

¹¹For this is what Adonai said to me, speaking with a strong hand, warning me not to live the way this people does:

¹²“Don’t regard as alliance what this people calls alliance,

and don’t fear what they fear or be awestruck by it;

¹³but Adonai -Tzva’ot — consecrate him!

Let him be the object of your fear and awe!

¹⁴He is there to be a sanctuary.

But for both the houses of Isra’el

he will be a stone to stumble over,

a rock obstructing their way;

a trap and a snare

for the inhabitants of Yerushalayim.

¹⁵Many of them will stumble and fall,

be broken and trapped and captured.

¹⁶Wrap up this document, and confine its teaching to those I have instructed.”

¹⁷I will wait for Adonai ,

who is hiding his face

from the house of Ya‘akov;

yes, I will look for him.

¹⁸Meanwhile, I and the children

whom Adonai has given me

will become for Isra’el

signs and wonders

from Adonai -Tzva’ot

living on Mount Tziyon.

¹⁹So when they tell you to consult

those squeaking, squawking mediums and fortune-tellers;

[you are to answer],

“Shouldn’t a people seek their God?

Must the living ask the dead

²⁰for teaching and instruction?”

For they will indeed give you

this unenlightened suggestion.

²¹Distressed and hungry

they will pass through the land;

and because of their hunger they will grow angry

and curse by their king and by their God.

But whether they look up [to God]

²²or [down] at the earth,

they will see only trouble and darkness,

anguished gloom and pervasive darkness.

²³But there will be no more gloom

for those who are now in anguish.

In the past the land of Z’vulun

and the land of Naftali were regarded lightly;

but in the future he will honor the way to the lake,

beyond the Yarden, Galil-of-the-Goyim.