Isaiah 17
17
God’s Message to Aram
1This is the message for Damascus:
“The city of Damascus will be destroyed.
Only ruins will be left there.
2People will leave the cities of Aroer.
Flocks of sheep will wander freely in those empty towns.
There will be no one to bother them.
3The strong, walled cities of Israel will be destroyed.
The government in Damascus will end.
Those left alive of Aram will be
like the glory of Israel,” says the Lord of heaven’s armies.
4“At that time Israel’s wealth will all be gone.
Israel will be like a man who has lost much weight from sickness.
5That time will be like the grain harvest in the Valley of Rephaim.
The workers cut the wheat.
Then they cut the heads of grain from the plants.
And they collect the grain.
6That time will also be like the olive harvest,
when a few olives are left.
Two or three olives are left in the top branches.
Four or five olives are left on full branches,” says the Lord, the God of Israel.
7At that time people will look to God, their Maker.
Their eyes will see the Holy One of Israel.
8They will not trust the altars they have made.
They will not trust what their hands have made.
They will not respect the Asherah idols
and altars they have made.
9In that day all their strong cities will be empty. They will be like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites left. They left their cities when the Israelites came to take the land. Everything will be ruined.
10You have forgotten the God who saves you.
You have not remembered that God is your place of safety.
You plant the finest grapevines.
You plant grapevines from faraway places.
11You will plant your grapevines one day and try to make them grow.
The next day they will begin to grow.
But at harvest time everything will be dead.
A sickness will kill all the plants.
12Listen to the many people!
They are crying loud like the noise from the sea.
Listen to the noise!
The crying is like the crashing of great waves.
13The people roar like those waves.
But when God speaks harshly to them, they will run away.
They will be like chaff on the hills being blown by the wind.
They will be like tumbleweeds blown away by a storm.
14At night the people will be very frightened.
Before morning, no one will be left.
So our enemies will come to our land,
but they will become nothing.
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Copyright © 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Isaiah 17
17
Prophecy about Damascus
1The [mournful, inspired] oracle (#I.e. an urgent message the prophet is under compulsion to proclaim.a burden to be carried) concerning Damascus [capital of Aram (Syria), and Israel’s defense against Assyria].
“Listen carefully, Damascus will cease to be a city
And will become a fallen ruin.
2The cities of Aroer [east of the Jordan] are deserted;
They will be [only a refuge] for flocks to lie down in,
And there will be no one to make them afraid.
3The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
And the kingdom from Damascus
And the remnant of Aram (Syria);
They will be like the [departed] glory of [her ally] the children of Israel,”
Declares the Lord of hosts.
4“Now in that day the [former] glory of Jacob [Israel—his might, his population, his prosperity] will fade,
And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5And it will be like the reaper gathering the standing grain,
As his arm harvests the ears of grain;
Yes, it will be like one gleaning ears of grain
In the [fertile] Valley of Rephaim.
6Yet gleanings will be left in the land [of Israel] like the shaking of the olive tree,
Two or three olives on the topmost branch,
Four or five on the [outermost] branches of the fruitful tree,”
Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.
7In that day man will have regard for his Maker,
And his eyes will regard the Holy One of Israel [with awe-inspired reverence].
8And he will not have regard for the [idolatrous] altars, the work of his hands,
Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made,
Neither the Asherim (symbols of the goddess Asherah) nor the incense altars.
9In that day the strong cities of Aram and Israel will be like #Greek reads, the deserted places of the Amorites and Hivites, which they abandoned.deserted places in the forest,
Or like branches which they abandoned before the children of Israel;
And the land will be a desolation.
10Because you [Judah] have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the Rock of your Stronghold—
Therefore you plant #Or gardens of Adonis, a mythological god.lovely plants
And set the grounds with vine slips of a strange god,
11In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
Yet [promising as it is] the harvest will be a heap [of ruins that passes away]
In the day of sickness and incurable pain.
12Oh, the uproar of many peoples
Who roar like the roaring of the seas,
And the noise of nations
Who roar like the rumbling of mighty waters!
13The nations roar on like the roaring of many waters,
But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind,
Or like whirling dust before the storm.
14At evening time, now look, sudden terror!
Before #The fulfillment of this prophecy (cf also Is 10:33, 34; 30:31; 31:8) is found in Is 37:36, following the repetition of the prophecy first recorded in 2 Kin 19:29-36. Just when an overwhelming victory by the Assyrian Sennacherib seemed inevitable, during a single night 185,000 of his army died, and Judah was spared—as the Lord through Isaiah had promised.morning the Assyrians are no more.
This is the portion (fate) of those who plunder us,
And the lot of those who pillage us.
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