Isaiah 17
Contemporary English Version
Damascus Will Be Punished
17 (A) This is a message about Damascus:
Damascus is doomed!
It will end up in ruins.
2 The villages around Aroer[a]
will be deserted,
with only sheep living there
and no one to bother them.
3 Israel[b] will lose its fortresses.
The kingdom of Damascus
will be destroyed;
its survivors will suffer
the same fate as Israel.
The Lord All-Powerful
has promised this.
Sin and Suffering
4 When that time comes,
the glorious nation of Israel
will be brought down;
its prosperous people
will be skin and bones.
5 Israel will be like wheat fields
in Rephaim Valley
picked clean of grain.
6 It will be like an olive tree
beaten with a stick,
leaving two or three olives
or maybe four or five
on the highest
or most fruitful branches.
The Lord God of Israel
has promised this.
7 At that time the people will turn and trust their Creator, the holy God of Israel. 8 They have built altars and places for burning incense to their goddess Asherah, and they have set up sacred poles[c] for her. But they will stop worshiping at these places.
9 Israel captured powerful cities and chased out the people who lived there. But these cities will lie in ruins, covered over with weeds and underbrush.[d]
10 Israel, you have forgotten
the God who saves you,
the one who is the mighty rock[e]
where you find protection.
You plant the finest flowers
to honor a foreign god.
11 The plants may sprout
and blossom
that very same morning,
but it will do you no good,
because you will suffer
endless agony.
God Defends His People
12 The nations are a noisy,
thunderous sea.
13 But even if they roar
like a fearsome flood,
God will give the command
to turn them back.
They will be like dust,
or like a tumbleweed
blowing across the hills
in a windstorm.
14 In the evening
their attack is fierce,
but by morning
they are destroyed.
This is what happens to those
who raid and rob us.
Footnotes
- 17.2 Aroer: Either a city near Damascus with the same name as the Moabite city or the Moabite city itself, here used as an example of what will happen to Damascus.
- 17.3 Israel: The Hebrew text has “Ephraim,” another name for the northern kingdom.
- 17.8 sacred poles: Or “trees,” used as symbols of Asherah, the goddess of fertility.
- 17.9 covered … underbrush: Hebrew; one ancient translation “like the cities of the Hivites and the Amorites.”
- 17.10 mighty rock: The Hebrew text has “rock,” which is sometimes used in poetry to compare the Lord to a mountain where his people can run for protection from their enemies.
Isaiah 17
English Standard Version
An Oracle Concerning Damascus
17 An (A)oracle concerning (B)Damascus.
Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city
and will become a heap of ruins.
2 The cities of (C)Aroer are deserted;
they will be for flocks,
which will lie down, and (D)none will make them afraid.
3 The fortress will disappear from (E)Ephraim,
and the kingdom from (F)Damascus;
and the remnant of Syria will be
like (G)the glory of the children of Israel,
declares the Lord of hosts.
4 And in that day (H)the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
and (I)the fat of his flesh will grow lean.
5 And it shall be (J)as when the reaper gathers standing grain
and his arm harvests the ears,
and as when one gleans the ears of grain
in (K)the Valley of Rephaim.
6 (L)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,
declares the Lord God of Israel.
7 (M)In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. 8 (N)He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the (O)Asherim or the altars of incense.
9 (P)In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.
10 For (Q)you have forgotten the God of your salvation
and have not remembered the (R)Rock of your refuge;
therefore, though you plant pleasant plants
and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,
11 though you make them grow[a] on the day that you plant them,
and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,
yet the harvest will flee away[b]
in a day of grief and incurable pain.
12 Ah, (S)the thunder of many peoples;
they thunder like the thundering of the sea!
Ah, the roar of nations;
they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!
13 (T)The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,
(U)but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
chased (V)like chaff on the mountains before the wind
and (W)whirling dust before the storm.
14 (X)At evening time, behold, terror!
Before morning, they are no more!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
and the lot of those who plunder us.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 17:11 Or though you carefully fence them
- Isaiah 17:11 Or will be a heap
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