Isaiah 6

Isaiah's Vision and Call

1In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and lifted up. The train of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphim stood above him. Each had six wings: with two each covered his face, with two his feet, and with two he flew. 3They called to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
The whole earth is full of his glory!” 4The doorposts shook at the sound of the one calling, and the house filled with smoke. 5I said, “Woe to me! I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”

6One of the seraphim flew to me with a glowing coal in his hand, taken from the altar with tongs. 7He touched my mouth and said, “Look, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed; your sin is atoned for.” 8Then I heard the Lord’s voice: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” I said, “Here I am. Send me!” 9He said, “Go and tell this people:
‘Keep listening, but do not understand;
keep looking, but do not know.’ 10Make this people’s heart dull,
make their ears heavy,
close their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their heart,
turn back, and be healed.”

11I asked, “How long, Lord?” He said, “Until cities lie ruined without inhabitants, houses without people, and the land lies utterly desolate; 12until the LORD has sent people far away and abandoned places multiply in the land. 13Even if a tenth remains, it will again be burned, like a terebinth or oak whose stump remains when felled. The holy seed is its stump.”