Isaiah 17
17
1 The burden of Damascus.
“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. 2The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid. 3The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” says the LORD of Armies.
4“It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean. 5It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim. 6Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says the LORD, the God of Israel. 7In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. 8They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherah poles or the incense altars. 9In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation. 10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings. 11In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12 Ah, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations that rush like the rushing of mighty waters! 13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm. 14At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
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Isaiah 17
17
Damascus Will Be Punished
1 #
Jr 49.23-27; Am 1.3-5; Zec 9.1. This is a message about Damascus:
Damascus is doomed!
It will end up in ruins.
2The villages around Aroer#17.2 Aroer: Either a city near Damascus with the same name as the Moabite city or the Moabite city itself, here used as an example of what will happen to Damascus.
will be deserted,
with only sheep living there
and no one to bother them.
3Israel#17.3 Israel: The Hebrew text has “Ephraim,” another name for the northern kingdom. will lose its fortresses.
The kingdom of Damascus
will be destroyed;
its survivors will suffer
the same fate as Israel.
The Lord All-Powerful
has promised this.
Sin and Suffering
4When that time comes,
the glorious nation of Israel
will be brought down;
its prosperous people
will be skin and bones.
5Israel will be like wheat fields
in Rephaim Valley
picked clean of grain.
6It will be like an olive tree
beaten with a stick,
leaving two or three olives
or maybe four or five
on the highest
or most fruitful branches.
The Lord God of Israel
has promised this.
7At that time the people will turn and trust their Creator, the holy God of Israel. 8They have built altars and places for burning incense to their goddess Asherah, and they have set up sacred poles#17.8 sacred poles: Or “trees,” used as symbols of Asherah, the goddess of fertility. for her. But they will stop worshiping at these places.
9Israel captured powerful cities and chased out the people who lived there. But these cities will lie in ruins, covered over with weeds and underbrush.#17.9 covered … underbrush: Hebrew; one ancient translation “like the cities of the Hivites and the Amorites.”
10Israel, you have forgotten
the God who saves you,
the one who is the mighty rock#17.10 mighty rock: The Hebrew text has “rock,” which is sometimes used in poetry to compare the Lord to a mountain where his people can run for protection from their enemies.
where you find protection.
You plant the finest flowers
to honor a foreign god.
11The plants may sprout
and blossom
that very same morning,
but it will do you no good,
because you will suffer
endless agony.
God Defends His People
12The nations are a noisy,
thunderous sea.
13But even if they roar
like a fearsome flood,
God will give the command
to turn them back.
They will be like dust,
or like a tumbleweed
blowing across the hills
in a windstorm.
14In the evening
their attack is fierce,
but by morning
they are destroyed.
This is what happens to those
who raid and rob us.
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
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