1: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne--high, exalted!-and the train of his robes filled the Temple.
2: Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew."
3: And they called back and forth one to the other, Holy, Holy, Holy is GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth.
4: The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke.
5: I said, "Doom! It's Doomsday! I'm as good as dead! Every word I've ever spoken is tainted--blasphemous even! And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I've looked God in the face! The King! GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!"
6: Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7: He touched my mouth with the coal and said, "Look. This coal has touched your lips. Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out."
8: And then I heard the voice of the Master: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" I spoke up, "I'll go. Send me!" [JC]
9: He said, "Go and tell this people: Listen hard, but you aren't going to get it; look hard, but you won't catch on.'
10: Make these people blockheads, with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes, So they won't see a thing, won't hear a word, So they won't have a clue about what's going on and, yes, so they won't turn around and be made whole."
11: Astonished, I said, "And Master, how long is this to go on?" He said, "Until the cities are emptied out, not a soul left in the cities--Houses empty of people, countryside empty of people.
12: Until I, GOD, get rid of everyone, sending them off, the land totally empty.
13: And even if some should survive, say a tenth, the devastation will start up again. The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down--Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps. But there's a holy seed in those stumps."