He touched my mouth means that the seraph touched Isaiah’s lips with the hot coal from the fire. This may need to be clarified, as Good News Translation has done. One way to do this is to say “He touched my lips with it” Many versions translate in this way, including New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch.

Behold, this has touched your lips: The word Behold has an emphatic function and draws attention to the action of the seraph. This refers to the burning coal. The physical, purifying effects of this fire are a symbol of an inner cleansing. Here lips is not a figure as in verse 5, but refers to Isaiah’s actual lips.

Your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven are two parallel clauses with the same meaning. Guilt and sin are synonymous, and so are is taken away and forgiven. The relationship between the action of the seraph and the inner cleansing is one of cause and effect. Some languages will need to put the result before the cause; for example, “Your guilt is removed and your sin is forgiven because this coal has touched your lips.” If it is necessary to change from the passive verbs here to active verbs and to provide a subject, it may be done by saying “God has taken away your guilt and forgiven your sin.”

Translation possibilities for this verse are:

• The seraph touched my mouth with the hot coal and said, “Look, this has touched your lips! Now your sin has been forgiven and you are no longer guilty.”

• The seraph put it to my mouth and said, “Now that this hot coal has touched your lips your guilt is removed and your sinfulness forgiven.”

• The seraph put the burning charcoal on my mouth, saying: “This has touched your lips. God has now taken away your guilt and your sins.”

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .