Isaiah 17

The Message

Damascus: A Pile of Dust and Rubble

17 ^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.