Isaiah 8:20

Pay attention to God’s instructions and teaching! If people do not say things that agree with what God teaches us, what they say is worthless. It is as though those people are in darkness.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

In Context

19Some people may urge you(pl) to ◄consult/go and talk with► those who talk with the spirits of dead people or with those who say that they receive messages from those spirits. They whisper and mutter about what we should do in the future. But God is [RHQ] the one whom we should ask to guide us! It is ridiculous [RHQ] for people who are alive to request spirits of dead people to tell us what we should do!

21They will wander through the land, worried/discouraged and hungry. And when they become very hungry, they will become very angry. They will look up toward heaven and curse God and will also curse their king.

Read all of Isaiah 8

Cross References

Ezra 10:3We will do what you, and the others who have an awesome respect for what our God has commanded, tell us to do. We will do what God told us in his laws. We will make an agreement with our God, saying that we will divorce our wives who are not Israelis, and we will send them away with their children.

Psalms 119:130When someone explains ◄your words/what you have said►, it is as though they are lighting a light; what they say causes even people who have not learned your laws to be wise.

Isaiah 1:10You leaders of Judah are as wicked as the rulers of Sodom were, and you other people in Jerusalem areas are as wicked as the people in Gomorrah were. Listen to this message from Yahweh, all of you!

Isaiah 30:8Yahweh told me to write on a scroll a message, in order that it would be a witness to the people of Judah that would endure forever.

Hosea 6:3We must try to know Yahweh; if we do that, he will come and help us, as surely as the sun rises every morning, as surely as rain falls every winter/cold season, and as surely as the rain falls again ◄in the springtime/at the end of the cold season►.”

Malachi 4:2But as for you who revere me [MTY], the one who will save you will come to you like [MET] the sun shines in the morning, and enable you to become righteous (OR, do what is righteous); he will restore you and protect you like a bird protects its chicks [MET] under its wings. When he comes, you will be very joyful, like [SIM] calves that go out from a barn into the pasture leaping joyfully.

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 8:17-22

The Importance of the Scriptures. ( b. c. 740.) 16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. 17 And I will wait upon the Lord , that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. 18 Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. 19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

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