Isaiah 17

Isaiah 17

An Oracle concerning Damascus

1An oracle concerning Damascus.[#2 Kings 16.9; Isa 8.4; 10.9; Jer 49.23; Am 1.3; Zech 9.1]

See, Damascus will cease to be a city

and will become a heap of ruins.

2Her towns will be deserted forever;[#Jer 7.33; #17.2 Cn Compare Gk: Heb the cities of Aroer are deserted]

they will be places for flocks,

which will lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim[#Isa 7.16; 8.4]

and the kingdom from Damascus,

and the remnant of Aram will be

like the glory of the people of Israel, says the Lord of hosts.

4On that day[#Isa 10.3, 16]

the glory of Jacob will be brought low,

and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.

5And it shall be as when reapers gather standing grain[#2 Sam 5.18, 22; Jer 51.33]

and their arms harvest the ears,

and as when one gleans the ears of grain

in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Gleanings will be left in it,[#Isa 24.13; 27.12]

as when an olive tree is beaten—

two or three berries

in the top of the highest bough,

four or five

on the branches of a fruit tree, says the Lord God of Israel.

7On that day people will look to their Maker, with their eyes on the Holy One of Israel;[#Isa 10.20; Mic 7.7]

8they will not have regard for the altars, the work of their hands, and they will not look to what their own fingers have made, either the sacred poles or the altars of incense.[#Ex 34.13; Deut 7.5; Isa 27.9; 30.22; 31.7; #17.8 Heb Asherahs]

9On that day their fortified cities will be like the deserted places of the Hivites and the Amorites, which they deserted because of the people of Israel, and there will be desolation.[#Isa 7.25; #17.9 Cn Compare Gk: Heb places of the wood and the highest bough]

10For you have forgotten God your Savior[#Ps 68.19; Isa 26.4; 30.29; 51.13]

and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;

therefore, though you plant pleasant gardens

and set out branches of a foreign god,

11though you make them grow on the day that you plant them[#Job 4.8; Ps 90.6]

and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,

yet the harvest will flee away

in a day of sickness and incurable pain.

12Woe, the thunder of many peoples,[#Ps 18.4; Jer 6.23; Ezek 43.2]

they thunder like the thundering of the sea!

The roar of nations,

they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

13[[When the nations roar like the roaring of many waters,]][#Ps 9.5; Isa 13.14; 29.5; 33.3; 41.15, 16; #17.13 Heb mss Syr lack When…waters]

he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,

chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind

and like whirling dust before the storm.

14At evening time, sudden terror![#2 Kings 19.35; Isa 41.12]

Before morning, they are no more.

This is the fate of those who despoil us

and the lot of those who plunder us.

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, copyright © 2021 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Published by: National Council of the Churches of Christ