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 Hosts.
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
God will Punish Syria and Israel
1 #
Jer 49.23–27; Amos 1.3–5; Zech 9.1 The LORD said, “Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins. 2The cities of Syria will be deserted for ever.#17.2 One ancient translation The cities… for ever; Hebrew The cities of Aroer are deserted. They will be a pasture for sheep and cattle, and no one will drive them away. 3Israel will be defenceless, and Damascus will lose its independence. Those Syrians who survive will be in disgrace like the people of Israel. I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken.”
4The LORD said, “A day is coming when Israel's greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty. 5Israel will be like a field where the corn has been cut and harvested, as desolate as a field in the valley of Rephaim when it has been picked bare. 6Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the LORD God of Israel, have spoken.”
7When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel. 8They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork — symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense.
9When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites#17.9 One ancient translation the Hivites and the Amorites; Hebrew woodland and hill country. abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel.
10Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and who protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens#17.10 sacred gardens: See 1.29. in order to worship a foreign god. 11But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain.
Enemy Nations are Defeated
12Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves. 13The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a hillside, like straw in a whirlwind. 14In the evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.
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Good News Bible. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.