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
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.