Isaiah 7:8

¹The burden of Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

²The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid. ³The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” says the LORD of Armies.

¹⁵He divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

²they came near to Zerubbabel, and to the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do; and we have been sacrificing to him since the days of Esar Haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.”

⁶Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus; and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought tribute. The LORD gave victory to David wherever he went.

⁵Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. ⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

⁷It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, ⁸and walked in the statutes of the nations whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. ⁹The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against the LORD their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; ¹⁰and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree; ¹¹and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom the LORD carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger; ¹²and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” ¹³Yet the LORD testified to Israel and to Judah, by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” ¹⁴Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck like the neck of their fathers who didn’t believe in the LORD their God. ¹⁵They rejected his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶They abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal. ¹⁷They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁸Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

¹⁹Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. ²⁰The LORD rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight. ²¹For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. ²²The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them ²³until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.

⁴For before the child knows how to say, ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ the riches of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.”

⁶She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, “Call her name Lo-Ruhamah,^[+] for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them.

⁷But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, ^[+] and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.”

⁸Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

⁹He said, “Call his name Lo-Ammi,^[+] for you are not my people, and I will not be yours. ¹⁰Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’