Isaiah

6 In the year of King ʽUzzijah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a high and high-placed throne with his trailing robes filling the temple. 2 Seraphs were standing above him: each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his legs, and with two he flew; 3 and this one called to that one “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of Armies; there is a whole worldful of his glory,” 4* and the foundations of the thresholds tossed at the caller’s voice, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 And I said “Woe to me, I am a dead man, because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Armies.” 6* And one of the seraphs flew to me with an ember which he had taken off the altar with the tongs, 7 and touched it to my mouth and said “Here, this has touched your lips, and your guilt shall pass away and your sin be purged.” 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord as he said “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” and I said “Here I am, send me.”

9 And he said “Go say to this people ‘Hear, but do not understand; see, but do not know.’ 10 Make this people’s brains fat, make its ears dull, gum over its eyes, for fear it should see with its eyes and hear with its ears and its brains should understand and it should turn back and be cured.”

11 And I said “How long, Lord?” And he said “Till cities tumble down to have no inhabitant, and houses to have no humankind, and the soil is a forlorn desolation, 12* and Jehovah sends mankind far away, and the deserted areas in the heart of the country are many, 13 and it has a tenth left in it, and goes back to being for beasts to eat down, like a terebinth or an oak which have suckers on them when they have been felled; its stock are a sacred seed.”