***Skooks' Playground***: Day 17: Isaiah

What a change of attitude . . . from Moses (send someone else) to Isaiah (here I am, send me). Isn't that the internal struggle of most, if not all, Christian people?

Isaiah 1:10-20
¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD,
   you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the instruction of our God,
   you people of Gomorrah!
¹¹ “The multitude of your sacrifices—
   what are they to me?” says the LORD.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
   of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
   in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
¹² When you come to appear before me,
   who has asked this of you,
   this trampling of my courts?
¹³ Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
   Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
   I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
¹⁴ Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
   I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
   I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer,
   I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
   I am not listening.
   Your hands are full of blood!
¹⁶ Wash and make yourselves clean.
   Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
   stop doing wrong.
¹⁷ Learn to do right; seek justice.
   Defend the oppressed.^[a]
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
   plead the case of the widow.
¹⁸ “Come now, let us settle the matter,”
   says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
   they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
   they shall be like wool.
¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient,
   you will eat the good things of the land;
²⁰ but if you resist and rebel,
   you will be devoured by the sword.”
            For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 6:1-13
Isaiah 6
Isaiah’s Commission
¹ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:    “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
   the whole earth is full of his glory.”
⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
   And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
⁹ He said, “Go and tell this people:
   “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
   be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
¹⁰ Make the heart of this people calloused;
   make their ears dull
   and close their eyes.^[a]
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
   hear with their ears,
   understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
¹¹ Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”
   And he answered:
   “Until the cities lie ruined
   and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
   and the fields ruined and ravaged,
¹² until the LORD has sent everyone far away
   and the land is utterly forsaken.
¹³ And though a tenth remains in the land,
   it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
   leave stumps when they are cut down,
   so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

Isaiah 8:11-9:7
¹¹ This is what the LORD says to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people:
¹² “Do not call conspiracy
   everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
   and do not dread it.
¹³ The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
   he is the one you are to fear,
   he is the one you are to dread.
¹⁴ He will be a holy place;
   for both 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 and a snare.
¹⁵ Many of them will stumble;
   they will fall and be broken,
   they will be snared and captured.”
¹⁶ Bind up this testimony of warning
   and seal up God’s instruction among my disciples.
¹⁷ I will wait for the LORD,
   who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.
¹⁸ Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.

The Darkness Turns to Light
¹⁹ When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰ Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. ²¹ Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. ²² Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
Isaiah 9
¹ ^[a]Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—
² The people walking in darkness
   have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
   a light has dawned.
³ You have enlarged the nation
   and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
   as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
   when dividing the plunder.
⁴ For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
   you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
   the bar across their shoulders,
   the rod of their oppressor.
⁵ Every warrior’s boot used in battle
   and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
   will be fuel for the fire.
⁶ For to us a child is born,
   to us a son is given,
   and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
   Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Of the greatness of his government and peace
   there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
   and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
   with justice and righteousness
   from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
   will accomplish this.