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.
Currently Selected:
Isaiah 17: ICB
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Copyright © 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Isaiah 17
17
1 #
Jer 49.23-27; Amos 1.3-5; Zech 9.1. An oracle concerning Damascus.
Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city,
and will become a heap of ruins.
2Her cities will be deserted for ever;#17.2 Cn Compare Gk: Heb the cities of Aroer are deserted
they will be for flocks,
which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.
3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus;
and the remnant of Syria will be
like the glory of the children of Israel,
says the Lord of hosts.
4And in that day
the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.
5And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain
and his arm harvests the ears,
and as when one gleans the ears of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim.
6Gleanings will be left in it,
as when an olive tree is beaten—
two or three berries
in the top of the highest bough,
four or five
on the branches of a fruit tree,
says the Lord God of Israel.
7In that day men will regard their Maker, and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel; 8they will not have regard for the altars, the work of their hands, and they will not look to what their own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.
9In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the Hivites and the Amorites,#17.9 Cn Compare Gk: Heb the wood and the highest bough which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.
10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,
and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;
therefore, though you plant pleasant plants
and set out slips of an alien god,
11though you make them grow on the day that you plant them,
and make them blossom in the morning that you sow;
yet the harvest will flee away
in a day of grief and incurable pain.
12Ah, the thunder of many peoples,
they thunder like the thundering of the sea!
Ah, the roar of nations,
they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!
13The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,
but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind
and whirling dust before the storm.
14At evening time, behold, terror!
Before morning, they are no more!
This is the portion of those who despoil us,
and the lot of those who plunder us.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America