Ésaïe 6

The Lord seated on a throne

¹In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and towering, and the hem of his robe filled the temple.^{a 2}Seraphim stood in attendance over him, and each of them had six wings. With one pair it kept its face covered, with one pair it kept its feet covered, and with one pair it flew. ³And they kept calling to each other, \q “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Armies! \q All that fills the earth is his glory.” ⁴At the sound of the one calling, the bases of the doorways trembled, and smoke filled the temple. ⁵Then I said, “Woe to me! I am finished. My lips are unclean, and the people I live among have unclean lips, and with my own eyes I have looked on the King, the LORD of Armies!”^{b 6}Then one of the seraphim flew to me. In its hand was a glowing coal that it had picked up off the altar with tongs. ⁷It touched my mouth with it and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is removed, and atonement is made for your sin.” ⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking, “Whom am I to send? Who will go on our behalf?” I answered, “I am ready. Send me.”^{c 9}He said, “Go, and say to this people: \q ‘Hear and hear again, yet do not understand; \q look and look again, yet do not come to know.’^{d 10}Fatten the heart of this people, \q weigh down their ears, and smear their eyes shut, \q so that their eyes do not see, their ears do not hear, and their heart does not understand, and they do not turn and find healing.’”^{e 11}Then I asked, “How long, Lord?” \q He answered, “Until towns lie in ruins with no one living in them, and houses have no one in them, \q and the farmland is laid waste and left desolate, ¹²and the LORD has sent the people far off, \q and much of the land lies empty and abandoned. ¹³Should a tenth still be left in it, that too will go to the fire once more, \q like a terebinth or an oak that is felled and leaves only a stump. \q But its stump is a holy seed.”^f