- And it came to pass in the days of Achaz
the son of Joatham, the son of Ozias, king
of Juda, there came up Rasim king of Aram,
and Phakee son of Romelias, king of Israel,
against Jerusalem to war against it, but
they could not [a] take it.
- And a message
was brought to the house of David, saying,
Aram has conspired with Ephraim. And
his soul was amazed, and the soul of his
people, as in a wood a tree is moved by the
wind.
- And the Lord said to Esaias, Go
forth to meet Achaz, thou, and thy son
Jasub who is left, to the pool of the upper
way of the fuller's field.
- And thou shalt
say to him, Take care to be quiet, and fear
not, neither let thy soul be disheartened
because of these two smoking firebrands:
for when my fierce anger is over, I will heal
again.
- And as for the son of Aram, and
the son of Romelias, forasmuch as they have
devised an evil counsel, saying,
- We will go
up against Judea, and having conferred
with them we will turn them away to our
side, and we will make the son of Tabeel
king of it;
- thus saith the Lord of hosts,
This counsel shall not abide, nor come to
pass.
- But the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus, Rasim; and yet
within sixty and five years the kingdom of
Ephraim shall cease from being a people.
- And the head of Ephraim is Somoron, and
the head of Somoron the son of Romelias:
but [b] if ye believe not, neither will ye at all
understand.
- And the Lord again spoke to Achaz,
saying,
- Ask for thyself a sign of the Lord
thy God, in the depth or in the height.
- And Achaz said, I will not ask, neither
will I tempt the Lord.
- And he said,
Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a
little thing for you to contend with men?
and how do ye contend against the Lord?
- Therefore the Lord himself shall give you
a sign; [c] behold, a virgin shall conceive
in the womb, and shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.
- Butter and honey shall he eat, before he
knows either to prefer evil, or choose the
good.
- For before the child shall know
good or evil, he refuses evil, to choose the
good; and the land shall be forsaken which
thou art afraid of because of the two kings.
- But God shall bring upon thee, and
upon thy people, and upon the house of thy
father, days which have never come, from the
day that Ephraim took away from Juda
the king of the Assyrians.
- And it shall
come to pass in that day that the Lord
shall hiss for the flies, [d] which insect shall
rule over a part of the river of Egypt, and
for the bee which is in the land of the
Assyrians.
- And they all shall enter into
the clefts of the land, and into the holes of
the rocks, and into the caves, and into every
ravine.
- In that day the Lord shall shave
with the hired razor of the king of Assyria
beyond the river the head, and the hairs of
the feet, and will remove the beard.
- And
it shall come to pass in that day, that a man
shall rear a heifer, and two sheep.
- And
it shall come to pass from their [e] drinking
an abundance of milk, that every one that is
left on the land shall eat butter and honey.
- And it shall come to pass in that day,
for every place where there shall be a
thousand vines at a thousand shekels, they
shall become [f] barren land and thorns.
- Men shall enter thither with arrow and
bow; for all the land shall be barren ground
and thorns.
- And every mountain shall
be certainly ploughed: there shall no fear
come thither: for there shall be from
among the barren ground and thorns that
whereon cattle shall feed and oxen shall tread.
[a] Lit. besiege See Heb.
[b] Comp. Heb.
[c] Mat. 1.23.
[d] Or, which part of the
enemy, etc. shall rule over the river of Egypt; but according
to Alex. the reading in the text is the right one.
[e] Alex.
poiei~n, 'giving.'
[f] Gr. for land and for a thorn.
[English translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee
Brenton (1807-1862) originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons,
Ltd., London, 1851]