Isaiah 17
17
Damascus will be punished
1This is a message about Damascus:#Jr 49.23-27; Am 1.3-5; Zec 9.1.
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 perhaps 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 worshipping 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 undergrowth.#17.9 covered…undergrowth: 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 honour 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 straw
blowing across the hills
in a storm.
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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Isaiah 17: CEVUK
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© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
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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