The Holiness of God: Introduction

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings : with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said : Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said : Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
And he touched my mouth and said : Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am! Send me.
And he said, Go, and say to this people : Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.
Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.
Then I said, How long, O Lord? And he said : Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste,
and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright