New Living Translation
Isaiah • Chapter 17
1
This message came to me concerning Damascus: “Look, the city of Damascus will disappear!<br>It will become a heap of ruins.<br>
2
The towns of Aroer will be deserted.<br>Flocks will graze in the streets and lie down undisturbed,<br>with no one to chase them away.<br>
3
The fortified towns of Israel will also be destroyed,<br>and the royal power of Damascus will end.<br>All that remains of Syria<br>will share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,”<br>declares the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.<br>
4
“In that day Israel’s glory will grow dim;<br>its robust body will waste away.<br>
5
The whole land will look like a grainfield<br>after the harvesters have gathered the grain.<br>It will be desolate,<br>like the fields in the valley of Rephaim after the harvest.<br>
6
Only a few of its people will be left,<br>like stray olives left on a tree after the harvest.<br>Only two or three remain in the highest branches,<br>four or five scattered here and there on the limbs,”<br>declares the LORD, the God (Elohim) of Israel.<br>
7
Then at last the people will look to their Creator<br>and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.<br>
8
They will no longer look to their idols for help<br>or worship what their own hands have made.<br>They will never again bow down to their Asherah poles<br>or worship at the pagan shrines they have built.<br>
9
Their largest cities will be like a deserted forest,<br>like the land the Hivites and Amorites abandoned<br>when the Israelites came here so long ago.<br>It will be utterly desolate.<br>
10
Why? Because you have turned from the God (Elohim) who can save you.<br>You have forgotten the Rock who can hide you.<br>So you may plant the finest grapevines<br>and import the most expensive seedlings.<br>
11
They may sprout on the day you set them out;<br>yes, they may blossom on the very morning you plant them,<br>but you will never pick any grapes from them.<br>Your only harvest will be a load of grief and unrelieved pain.<br>
12
Listen! The armies of many nations<br>roar like the roaring of the sea.<br>Hear the thunder of the mighty forces<br>as they rush forward like thundering waves.<br>
13
But though they thunder like breakers on a beach,<br>God (Elohim) will silence them, and they will run away.<br>They will flee like chaff scattered by the wind,<br>like a tumbleweed whirling before a storm.<br>
14
In the evening Israel waits in terror,<br>but by dawn its enemies are dead.<br>This is the just reward of those who plunder us,<br>a fitting end for those who destroy us.<br>