This haftarah opens with Isaiah's vision of God seated on a high and lofty throne, His train filling the Temple, attended by seraphim who call to one another, holy, holy, holy is the God of hosts, the whole earth full of His glory, a scene so overwhelming that the Temple's foundations shake and fill with smoke.
Isaiah responds by declaring himself lost, a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips, until a seraph touches a live coal from the altar to his mouth, declaring his guilt taken away and his sin purged. When God then asks whom to send, Isaiah volunteers immediately, here am I, send me, and is given a difficult commission: to speak to a people who will hear but not understand, see but not perceive, until the land lies desolate.
The haftarah closes with a much later passage promising a child to be born who will bear titles including wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father and prince of peace, whose government and peace will increase without end, seated on David's throne, upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time forward.
The closing promise of a ruler seated on David's throne, upholding it with justice from that time forward, gives the haftarah a second focus beyond the vision itself, tying Isaiah's personal commissioning to a much longer national hope for stable, righteous leadership still to come.