Isaiah 17

Isaiah

17 ¹A prophecy against Damascus:

The Lord

“Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city,
and it will be a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer will be deserted; they will be a place for flocks,
which will lie down, and none will disturb them.

³The fortress will cease from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus;
and the remnant of Aram
will be like the glory of the children of Israel,”

Isaiah

declares the LORD of Hosts.

The Lord

⁴“And it will come to pass in that day

that the glory of Jacob will be made thin,
and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

⁵And it will be like a harvester who gathers standing grain
and reaps ears of grain with his arm;
or it will be like one who gleans ears of grain
in the valley of Rephaim.

⁶Gleanings will be left,
like one who shakes an olive tree,

two or three berries on the topmost bough,
four or five in the branches of a fruitful tree,”

Isaiah

declares the LORD God of Israel.

Isaiah

⁷In that day the human will gaze at his Maker,
and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸And he will not gaze at the altars, the work of his hands,
neither will look at the Asherim[1] or incense altars, which his fingers have made.

⁹In that day his stronghold cities will be like the deserted sites
of the Hivites and the Amorites,

which they deserted because of the children of Israel,
and there will be desolation.

¹⁰Because you have forgotten the “God of Your Salvation,”
and the “Rock of Your Stronghold,” you have not remembered;

therefore, though you will plant pleasant plants
and sow imported sprigs,

¹¹in the day of your planting, you will make them grow,
and in the morning that you sow, you will make them blossom,

but the harvest will be a heap
in the day of grief and of incurable pain.

Isaiah

¹²Woe to the multitude of many people,
who are turbulent like the turbulence of the seas;
O the roar of nations,
the roar like the roar of mighty waters!

¹³The nations roar like the roar of many waters,
but He will rebuke them,

and they will flee far away
and will be chased

like the chaff of the mountains before the wind
and like a tumbleweed before the whirlwind.

¹⁴And behold, in the evening—terror!
And before morning—they are gone!

God’s covenant people

“Such is the portion of those who loot us,
and the lot of those who plunder us.”