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
Oracle of Judgment on Damascus
1An oracle of Damascus:
“Look! Damascus will cease being a city
and will become a heap of ruins.
2The cities of Aroer will be deserted;#These words in Hebrew (and “flocks” in the next line) all begin with the same letter, Ayin
they will be for the flocks,
and they will lie down and no one will frighten#Literally “there is not one who frightens” them.
3And the fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus;
and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the children of Israel,”
declares#Literally “declaration of” Yahweh of hosts.
4“And this shall happen:
On that day, the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
and the fat of his flesh will become lean.
5And it shall be as when a reaper gathers#Literally “a gathering of a reaper of” standing grain
and he reaps grain with his arm,
and it shall be like one who gathers ears of grain
in the valley of Rephaim.
6And gleanings will be left over in it, as when an olive tree is beaten,#Literally “beating of an olive tree”
two or three ripe olive berries in the top of a branch,
four or five on its fruitful branches,”
declares#Literally “declaration of” Yahweh, the God of Israel.
7On that day, mankind will look to its maker,
and its eyes will look to the holy one of Israel;
8it will not look to the altars,
the work of its hands,
and it will not see what its fingers made
and the poles of Asherah worship and the incense altars.
9On that day, its fortified cities#Literally “the cities of his fortress” will be like the abandonment of the wooded place and the summit,#Perhaps this difficult phrase originally read “abandonment of the wooded heights of the Amorites” which they deserted because of the children of Israel; and there will be desolation.
10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,
and you have not remembered the rock of your refuge;
therefore you plant plants of pleasantness,
and you plant#Literally “plant it” a vine of a foreigner.
11On your planting day you make them grow,
and in the morning of your sowing you bring them into bloom,
yet the harvest will flee#Reading the same consonants as a verb, nad, rather than the noun ned, which would mean “a heap ofthe harvest” in a day of sickness and incurable pain.
The Roar of the Peoples
12Ah! The noise of many peoples, they make a noise like the noise of the seas!
And the roar of nations, they roar like the roar of mighty waters!
13The nations roar like the roar of many waters,
but he will rebuke him, and he will flee far away.
And they are chased like chaff of the mountains before the wind
and like tumbleweed before the storm.
14At the time of evening, and look, terror!
Before morning he is no more.
This is the fate of those who plunder us
and the lot of those who plunder us.
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