Isaiah 17-20

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

See, Damascus will cease to be a city
    and will become a heap of ruins.^(A)
2 Her towns will be deserted forever;^[a]
    they will be places for flocks,
    which will lie down, and no one will make them afraid.^(B)
3 The fortress will disappear from Ephraim
    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.^(C)

⁴ On that day
    the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
    and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.^(D)
5 And it shall be as when reapers gather standing grain
    and their arms harvest the ears,
and as when one gleans the ears of grain
    in the Valley of Rephaim.^(E)
6 Gleanings will be left in it,
    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.^(F)

¹⁰ For you have forgotten God your Savior
    and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;
therefore, though you plant pleasant gardens
    and set out branches of a foreign god,^(J)
11 though you make them grow on the day that you plant them
    and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,
yet the harvest will flee away
    in a day of sickness and incurable pain.^(K)

¹² Woe, the thunder of many peoples,
    they thunder like the thundering of the sea!
The roar of nations,
    they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!^(L)
13 [[When the nations roar like the roaring of many waters,]]^[d]
    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.^(M)
14 At evening time, sudden terror!
    Before morning, they are no more.
This is the fate of those who despoil us
    and the lot of those who plunder us.^(N)

³ All you inhabitants of the world,
    you who live on the earth,
when a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
    When a trumpet is blown, listen!^(Q)
4 For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look from my dwelling
    like clear heat in sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”^(R)
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over
    and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he will cut off the shoots with pruning hooks,
    and the spreading branches he will hew away.^(S)
6 They shall all be left
    to the birds of prey of the mountains
    and to the animals of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
    and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.^(T)

See, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud
    and comes to Egypt;
the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
    and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.^(V)
2 I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
    and they will fight, one against the other,
    neighbor against neighbor,
    city against city, kingdom against kingdom;^(W)
3 the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
    and I will confound their plans;
they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead
    and the ghosts and the familiar spirits;^(X)
4 I will deliver the Egyptians
    into the hand of a hard master;
a fierce king will rule over them,
    says the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts.^(Y)

⁵ The waters of the Nile will be dried up,
    and the river will be parched and dry;^(Z)
6 its canals will become foul,
    and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up.
Reeds and rushes will rot away,^(AA)
7     the reeds beside the Nile;^[h]
all that is sown by the Nile will dry up,
    be driven away, and be no more.
⁸ Those who fish will mourn;
    all who cast hooks in the Nile will lament,
    and those who spread nets on the water will languish.
⁹ The workers in flax will be in despair,
    and the carders and those at the loom will grow pale.
¹⁰ Its weavers will be dismayed,
    and all who work for wages will be grieved.^(AB)

¹¹ Clearly the princes of Zoan are foolish;
    the wise counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
    “I am one of the sages,
    a descendant of ancient kings”?^(AC)
12 Where now are your sages?
    Let them tell you and make known
    what the Lord of hosts has planned against Egypt.^(AD)
13 The princes of Zoan have become fools,
    and the princes of Memphis are deluded;
those who are the cornerstones of its tribes
    have led Egypt astray.^(AE)
14 The Lord has poured into them^[i]
    a spirit of confusion;
and they have made Egypt stagger in all its doings
    as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.^(AF)
15 Neither head nor tail, palm branch or reed,
    will be able to do anything for Egypt.