Isaiah 17
17
Damascus: A Pile of Dust and Rubble
1-3A Message concerning Damascus:
“Watch this: Damascus undone as a city,
a pile of dust and rubble!
Her towns emptied of people.
The sheep and goats will move in
And take over the towns
as if they owned them—which they will!
Not a sign of a fort is left in Ephraim,
not a trace of government left in Damascus.
What’s left of Aram?
The same as what’s left of Israel—not much.”
Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
The Day Is Coming
4-6“The Day is coming when Jacob’s robust splendor goes pale
and his well-fed body turns skinny.
The country will be left empty, picked clean
as a field harvested by field hands.
She’ll be like a few stalks of barley left standing
in the lush Valley of Rephaim after harvest,
Or like the couple of ripe olives overlooked
in the top of the olive tree,
Or the four or five apples
that the pickers couldn’t reach in the orchard.”
Decree of the God of Israel.
7-8Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel. They’ll lose interest in all the stuff they’ve made—altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, handmade religion—however impressive it is.
9And yes, the Day is coming when their fortress cities will be abandoned—the very same cities that the Hivites and Amorites abandoned when Israel invaded! And the country will be empty, desolate.
You Have Forgotten God
10-11And why? Because you have forgotten God-Your-Salvation,
not remembered your Rock-of-Refuge.
And so, even though you are very religious,
planting all sorts of bushes and herbs and trees
to honor and influence your fertility gods,
And even though you make them grow so well,
bursting with buds and sprouts and blossoms,
Nothing will come of them. Instead of a harvest
you’ll get nothing but grief and pain, pain, pain.
12-13Oh my! Thunder! A thundering herd of people!
Thunder like the crashing of ocean waves!
Nations roaring, roaring,
like the roar of a massive waterfall,
Roaring like a deafening Niagara!
But God will silence them with a word,
And then he’ll blow them away like dead leaves off a tree,
like down from a thistle.
14At bedtime, terror fills the air.
By morning it’s gone—not a sign of it anywhere!
This is what happens to those who would ruin us,
this is the fate of those out to get us.
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Isaiah 17: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Yeshayah (Isaiah) 17
17
1The message concerning Dammeseq. “See, Dammeseq ceases to be a city, and shall become a heap of ruins.
2“The cities of Aro‛ĕr are forsaken, they are for flocks which shall lie down, with no one to frighten.
3“And the stronghold shall cease from Ephrayim, and the reign from Dammeseq, and the remnant of Aram be as the esteem of the sons of Yisra’ĕl,” declares יהוה of hosts.
4“And in that day it shall be that the esteem of Ya‛aqoḇ wanes, and the fatness of his flesh grows lean.
5“And it shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain, and reaps the heads with his arm. And it shall be as he who gathers heads of grain in the Valley of Repha’im.
6“And gleaning grapes shall be left in it, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives at the top of the uppermost branch, four or five in its most fruit-bearing branches,” declares יהוה Elohim of Yisra’ĕl.
7In that day man shall look to his Maker, and his eyes turn to the Set-apart One of Yisra’ĕl.
8And he shall not look to the slaughter-places, the work of his hands; and he shall not see that which his own fingers made, nor the Ashĕrim nor the sun-pillars.
9In that day his strong cities become like a forsaken forest and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Yisra’ĕl. And it shall become a ruin.
10Because you have forgotten the Elohim of your deliverance, and have not remembered the Rock of your stronghold, therefore you shall plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings,
11by day make your plant to grow, and in the morning make your seed to flourish – but the harvest is a heap in the day of grief and incurable pain.
12Woe to the uproar of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas, and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters –
13nations rushing like the rushing of many waters. But He shall rebuke them and they shall flee far away, and be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, like whirling dust before the whirlwind.
14At eventide, look! Alarm! Before morning, it is no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
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