Isaiah’s Vision of the Lord
The year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. He was high and lifted up. His robe filled the temple. Above him stood angels called seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their face. With two wings they covered their feet. With two wings they flew. One angel called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” The doorposts moved at the voice of the one who called. The house filled with smoke.
Then I said: “I’m in trouble! I am ruined. I am a man with unclean lips. I live with people who have unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me. He had a hot coal in his hand. He had taken it with tongs from the altar. He put it on my mouth. He said: “Look, this has touched your lips. Your sin is taken away. Your sin is cleaned.”
Isaiah Is Called
I also heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Who should I send? Who will go for us?” Then I said: “Here I am. Send me.”
And he said: “Go and tell these people: You will hear but you won’t understand. You will see but you won’t understand what you see. Make the hearts of these people dull. Make their ears heavy. Shut their eyes. Otherwise they will see with their eyes and hear with their ears. They will understand with their hearts and turn back to me. And I will heal them.”
Then I said: “Lord, how long?” And he said: “Until the cities are destroyed and no one lives in them. Until the houses have no people. Until the land is totally empty. The Lord will remove people far away. There will be a great leaving of the land. But there will still be a tenth left. They will return and be eaten. Like a terebinth tree or an oak tree that has substance when it loses its leaves, the holy children will be the substance of the land.”