Dual Panel1Again the LORD said to me, "Make a large signboard and clearly write this name on it: Maher–shalal–hash–baz."
2I asked Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah, both known as honest men, to testify that I had written it before the child was conceived.
3Then I slept with my wife, and she became pregnant and had a son. And the LORD said, "Call him Maher–shalal–hash–baz.
4This name prophesies that within a couple of years, before this child is old enough to say ‘Papa’ or ‘Mama,’ the king of Assyria will invade both Damascus and Samaria and carry away their riches."
5Then the LORD spoke to me again and said,
6"The people of Judah have rejected my gentle care and are rejoicing over what will happen to King Rezin and King Pekah.
7Therefore, the Lord will overwhelm them with a mighty flood from the Euphrates River ––the king of Assyria and all his mighty armies.
8This flood will overflow all its channels and sweep into Judah. It will submerge Immanuel’s land from one end to the other.
9"The Assyrians will cry, ‘Do your best to defend yourselves, but you will be shattered! Listen all you nations. Prepare for battle––and die! Yes, die!
10Call your councils of war, develop your strategies, prepare your plans of attack––and then die! For God is with us!’"
11The LORD has said to me in the strongest terms: "Do not think like everyone else does.
12Do not be afraid that some plan conceived behind closed doors will be the end of you.
13Do not fear anything except the LORD Almighty. He alone is the Holy One. If you fear him, you need fear nothing else.
14He will keep you safe. But to Israel and Judah he will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap that entangles them.
15Many of them will stumble and fall, never to rise again. Many will be captured."
16I will write down all these things as a testimony of what the LORD will do. I will entrust it to my disciples, who will pass it down to future generations.
17I will wait for the LORD to help us, though he has turned away from the people of Israel. My only hope is in him.
18I and the children the LORD has given me have names that reveal the plans the LORD Almighty has for his people.
19So why are you trying to find out the future by consulting mediums and psychics? Do not listen to their whisperings and mutterings. Can the living find out the future from the dead? Why not ask your God?
20"Check their predictions against my testimony," says the LORD. "If their predictions are different from mine, it is because there is no light or truth in them.
21My people will be led away as captives, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rage and shake their fists at heaven and curse their king and their God.
22Wherever they look, there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. They will be thrown out into the darkness."