Old/New Testament
17 A message about Damascus:
An ethnic group of Arameans control what will one day be the southern region of Syria; it is known as Aram. Damascus is its capital. Out of fear of Assyria and its brutal expansion west, Israel and Aram form an alliance and try to bully Judah and her king, Ahaz, into joining the futile confederation. But the prophet Isaiah holds a different opinion. He boldly instructs the king not to make any alliances or form any confederation as the Assyrian threat grows; instead, the prophet says, trust in God and God will protect you. But Israel and Aram attempt to force Judah into their alliance, unseating her king and replacing him with someone they can control. So Ahaz makes an alliance, not with Israel and Aram, but with their enemy, Assyria. When he asks for the empire’s help, they eagerly agree. Although Assyria assists Ahaz in warding off one threat, Assyria itself constitutes an even greater threat as Judah will soon experience.
Eternal One: So much for the “city of Damascus.”
It’s done for. Soon it will be just a pile of rubble.
2 The towns around it[a] will empty of people and be turned back to open land.
Imagine—sheep grazing and lying down where people used to live.
There won’t be a soul to scare them off.
3 The defenses of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, will fall—
Ephraim’s fortress walls will tumble down;
Damascus will no longer rule itself.
Aram—what is left of them—will resemble Israel’s fading glory.
That’s what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, says.
4 Eternal One: Israel will be humbled then too;
our cousins, the children of Jacob, will lose their luster, their wealth and excess.
5 The land will resemble a field stripped until it is nearly bare,
like when the harvest has come and gone,
like the meager grain gleaned in the valley of Rephaim.
6 But some gleanings will remain
like when olive trees are beaten,
Where two or three olives remain at the top of a tree
and four or five hold on tight to its fruitful branches.
So says the Eternal One, Israel’s God.
7 Then, in that day, people will turn to the One who shaped them.
They’ll look on the Creator, the Holy One of Israel,
8 And disregard the things they’d made into gods.
They’ll turn away from worthless, handmade objects, sacred poles, and incense altars.
9 And then, in that day, their great cities will be abandoned
like defenseless outposts in a hilly forest,
Like those deserted when the Israelites took the land;
the scene will be eerily quiet and empty.
Israel’s devotion to things of their own making will come to nothing. If God is not the center of their work and striving, every gain is in fact a loss.
10 You have proven forgetful of God—how God pulls you clear of danger,
how God stands firm, like a great Rock where you can take shelter.
Because you have forgotten the one True God,
you planted pleasant gardens and set out tender vines of a strange god.
11 They sprouted so quickly the day you set them out;
they budded immediately the morning you planted them;
But you will never gather any sweet grapes from them.
What you reap will be illness and pain; that day will be filled with sadness.
12 Listen to the restless roar of the peoples!
They roar like a fitful sea.
Listen to the crashing thunder of the nations;
they thunder like a powerful surge of water.
13 But even if they thunder like a wall of water,
when God rebukes them, they will run far away;
With a word they’ll be driven like chaff in a mountain gust
or dust in a windstorm.
14 In the evening, look, their enemies terrorize them;
but by morning, they’re gone.
So it will be for those who attack and steal from us;
those who take, take, take will come to nothing and run away.
18 O land abuzz with the whirring of wings,
far away past the Ethiopian rivers,
2 With papyrus-reed boats shuttling ambassadors back and forth!
Go quickly, you messengers, to those impressive people,
Those fearsome and terrifying people so lank and smooth.
Theirs is a powerful nation divided by rivers.
3 All citizens of the world, every last inhabitant of the earth, pay attention!
When you see a signal raised on the mountains, look!
When the trumpets sound the alarm, listen!
4 Because the Eternal told me,
Eternal One: I am in control—calm and serene.
I am watching quietly from where I dwell
Just as surely as the heat shimmers in the blazing sun
and the dewy mists cool the warmth of a harvest day.
5 For even before the harvest begins, when the buds blossom
and the flowers make way for the ripening grapes,
God will cut back their shoots with pruning shears,
lop off and clear away the spreading branches.
6 He will leave the trimmings for the birds of prey
and the wild animals on the mountain.
The vultures will feed on their flesh during the summer,
and the wild animals will be nourished on their bones through the winter.
At times God watches “behind the scenes” quietly, calmly. But when it is the right time, God knows where and how to act. Throughout history nations rise and fall, but God is as constant as the summer heat and the cool fall breezes. Many nations such as Ethiopia look for diplomatic solutions and alliances in the face of the Assyrian threat. But Isaiah counsels them to stand back and watch, for he knows what God is about to do. Before the harvest, that is, before the armed rebellion against Assyria is set to begin, God moves in, pruning, lopping, clearing, and preparing the world for a better day.
7 Then those terrifying peoples—the lank and smooth from far away,
from the land divided by rivers, powerful and domineering—
Will honor the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, with gifts.
These proud people will bring them to Mount Zion,
Where the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has placed His special name.
19 A message about Egypt:
The Eternal One will come winging in to Egypt
On a swiftly moving cloud, making her idols quake.
The Egyptians themselves will lose heart in the face of God.
2, 4 The Lord, the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, says,
Eternal One: I will subject the Egyptians to oppressive forces
and heartless leadership of a dictator-king.
I will make them turn against each other,
Egyptian against Egyptian, a civil war,
Right down to the houses within a neighborhood—
city against city, district against district.[b]
3 They’ll lose all courage and I’ll frustrate their plans.
They’ll seek the advice of long dead ancestors and empty idols,
mediums and fortune-tellers.
But it is I who determine their fate.
5-7 Egypt’s waterways and everything that lives in them will dry up and die—
saltwater and fresh, standing pools and running streams will all evaporate.
All the reeds and rushes along the river’s edge will wither and die and rot away.
All the crops sown by the Nile will turn brittle and dry,
to be blown away—completely away—by sultry winds.
The people who depend on these waters for their livelihood will see their lives and future evaporate before them.
8 Fishermen who set their lines and cast their nets into the Nile
will languish and mourn.
9 Weavers who comb flax into spinning fibers
and produce linen will be deep in despair.
10 The solid citizens of Egypt will be crushed,
and all who work hard for a day’s wage will be deeply distressed.
11 The leaders of Zoan are fools!
And those who count themselves among the Pharaoh’s smartest counselors
Base their advice on bizarre flights of fancy.
How can you tell Pharaoh,
“I am among the long line of Egypt’s wise and an heir of ancient kings”?
12 I certainly don’t see any such sages. If they’re here,
they should be able to tell you
what the Eternal One, Commander of heavenly armies, has in store for Egypt.
13 The elite, the nobles from the northern delta south to bustling Memphis,
have been overconfident, deluded fools.
These cornerstones of society have led Egypt in the wrong direction,
and Egypt pays the price.
14 The Eternal has mixed them up and confused them.
God has frustrated Egypt’s efforts in everything.
Weaving and sick like an everyday drunk.
15 There will be nothing left for Egypt to do.
Nobody—no head, no tail, no noble palm, no lowly reed—
will be able to help Egypt.
16 Then, in that day, when the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, raises His hand and displays His power, the Egyptians will cower like frightened women. 17 Egypt will even be terrified of our little Judah. Just the word “Judah” will set everyone trembling and shaking because of what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, plans to do against them.
18 In that day, five cities in Egypt, one of which is called the city of destruction,[c] will adopt the language we speak in Canaan and swear to remain faithful to the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies.
19 When that day arrives, there will be an altar for rituals, marking the Eternal’s sacred space right there in the middle of Egypt, and a pillar erected to Him at its border. 20 These will serve to notify everyone that the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, is present; God can and will be in Egypt. And if things get bad for them, the Eternal will respond to their cries for help by sending someone—a liberator and defender—to deliver them from their oppressors. 21 The Eternal will make sure the Egyptians know Him. They will know and worship Him with gifts and praise, solemn promises and offerings. 22 After all God’s disciplining action, the Eternal will take them back with gentle care. After His punishment, there will be healing; the Egyptians will turn to Him, and He will hear and heal them.
Though Egypt and Assyria are mortal enemies, God is about to do something new for them both. The God of peace always seeks to make peace among the nations.
23 When that day arrives, there will be a road connecting Egypt to Assyria and people of both nations will travel it to worship together, side-by-side. 24 Our land of Israel, through which that road travels, will then be allied with these other great nations, and Israel will be a whole-earth blessing, the hub of proper worship. 25 The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, declares such blessing:
Eternal One: Egypt, too, shall be blessed and called “My people” and Assyria “My doing,” because I made it. Israel, of course, is simply Mine—now as before and as ever will be—“My heritage.”
17 So understand and be confident in God’s will, and don’t live thoughtlessly. 18 Don’t drink wine excessively. The drunken path is a reckless path. It leads nowhere. Instead, let God fill you with the Holy Spirit. 19 When you are filled with the Spirit, you are empowered to speak to each other in the soulful words of pious songs, hymns, and spiritual songs; to sing and make music with your hearts attuned to God; 20 and to give thanks to God the Father every day through the name of our Lord Jesus the Anointed for all He has done.
Wisdom is a rare commodity. Paul urges believers, then and now, to walk wisely. It involves living well every day. Time itself seems to be co-opted by dark forces. But when believers understand God’s will, avoid drunkenness, and allow God to fill them with His Spirit, they are able to walk wisely and live well. The Spirit-filled life is not just for a special few; it is the normal Christian life, and it affects everything, including how we live in community and how we treat others at home.
21 And the Spirit makes it possible to submit humbly to one another out of respect for the Anointed. 22 Wives, it should be no different with your husbands. Submit to them as you do to the Lord, 23 for God has given husbands a sacred duty to lead as the Anointed leads the church and serves as the head. (The church is His body; He is her Savior.) 24 So wives should submit to their husbands, respectfully, in all things, just as the church yields to the Anointed One.
25-26 Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His word. 27 He has given Himself so that He can present the church as His radiant bride, unstained, unwrinkled, and unblemished—completely free from all impurity—holy and innocent before Him. 28 So husbands should care for their wives as if their lives depended on it, the same way they care for their own bodies. As you love her, you ultimately are loving part of yourself (remember, you are one flesh). 29 No one really hates his own body; he takes care to feed and love it, just as the Anointed takes care of His church, 30 because we are living members of His body. 31 “And this is the reason a man leaves his father and his mother and is united with his wife; the two come together as one flesh.”[a] 32 There is a great mystery reflected in this Scripture, and I say that it has to do with the marriage of the Anointed One and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each husband is to love and protect his own wife as if she were his very heart, and each wife is to respect her own husband.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.