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.
Isaiah 17
17
1The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks; and they shall lie down and there shall be none to make them afraid. 3The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts. 4And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall become lean. 5And it shall be as when the reaper gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; yea, it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6And a gleaning shall be left in it, as at the shaking of an olive-tree: two, three berries above, in the tree-top; four, five in its fruitful boughs, saith Jehovah, the God#GodHebrew: Elohim of Israel. 7In that day shall man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have regard to the Holy One of Israel. 8And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor have regard to what his fingers have made, neither the Asherahs nor the sun-images.
9In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken tract in the woodland, and the mountain-top which they forsook before the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation. 10For thou hast forgotten the God#GodHebrew: Elohim of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plantations, and shalt set them with foreign slips: 11in the day of thy planting wilt thou make them to grow, and on the morrow wilt thou make thy seed to flourish; but the harvest will flee in the day of taking possession, and the sorrow will be incurable.
12Ha! a tumult of many peoples! they make a noise as the noise of the seas; — and the rushing of nations! they rush as the rushing of mighty waters. 13The nations rush as the rushing of many waters; but he will rebuke them, and they shall flee far away, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a whirling of dust before the whirlwind: 14behold, at eventide, trouble; before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.
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First published in 1890. This edition is maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.