UST GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOS JDG RUTH 1 SAM 2 SAM 1 KI 2 KI 1 CHR 2 CHR EZRA NEH EST JOB PSA PROV ECC SNG ISA JER LAM EZE DAN HOS JOEL AMOS OBA YNA MIC NAH HAB ZEP HAG ZEC MAL MAT MARK LUKE YHN ACTs ROM 1 COR 2 COR GAL EPH PHP COL 1 TH 2 TH 1 TIM 2 TIM TIT PHM HEB YAC 1 PET 2 PET 1 YHN 2 YHN 3 YHN YUD REV

ISA C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C26 C27 C28 C29 C30 C31 C32 C33 C34 C35 C36 C37 C38 C39 C40 C41 C42 C43 C44 C45 C46 C47 C48 C49 C50 C51 C52 C53 C54 C55 C56 C57 C58 C59 C60 C61 C62 C63 C64 C65 C66

UST ISA Chapter 17

◄ ISA 17 ► ║ ═ ©

17 Yahweh gave this message about the Aramean kingdom whose capital was Damascus:

“Listen! I am going to destroy Damascus, so that it will no longer be a city.

It will be only a pile of ruins!

2 People will abandon the towns around the city of Aroer.

Flocks of sheep will eat grass and lie down there,

and no one will chase them away.

3 The northern kingdom of Israel will also lose its fortified cities

when enemies destroy the kingdom whose capital is Damascus.

The few people who remain in Aram

will lose the things that made them great, just as the Israelites will.”

That is what Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, declares.

4 “The kingdom of Israel has been glorious,

but at that time, it will become insignificant,

as if it were a fat person who became very thin.

5 The land of Israel will be as bare as a field where harvesters have cut down the grain stalks

and collected the heads of grain.

It will be like the fields in the Valley of the Raphaites

after poor people have come along and picked up the grain that the harvesters left behind.

6 Only a few Israelites will remain,

like the few olives that remain on a tree after workers have shaken it,

which poor people then come and pick.

The few Israelites will be like the two or three olives that remain on the top branches,

or like the four or five olives that remain on the branches that produce the most fruit.”

That is what Yahweh, the God whom Israelites should worship, declares.

7 At that time, the people will seek help from the God who made them.

They will depend on the holy God of the Israelites.

8 They will no longer seek help from the gods whom they worship at altars

that they have made themselves.

They will not worship idols they have made

that represent the goddess Asherah or the sun.

9 When the Israelites invaded the land of Canaan,

the former inhabitants abandoned their cities,

and trees and shrubs grew there.

In the same way, when God punishes the Israelites,

they will abandon their cities that have walls around them;

no one will live in them.

10 That will happen because they no longer worship the God who saved them.

He protected them as if he had been a huge rock they could climb onto and be safe.

They may plant fine plants

and even vine cuttings from foreign lands.

But since they no longer worship Yahweh,

11 even if the plants sprout and produce blossoms right away,

at harvest time, they will not have produced any crops.

People will just cut them down and throw them into a heap.

This will happen at the time when enemies afflict you

and you experience suffering that no one can relieve.

12 How terrible it will be for the huge army

that a king will assemble from many peoples!

It will make a loud sound, as the sea does.

Yes, that great army will make a loud roar, as a waterfall does.

13 But even though it will make a load roar as a waterfall does,

Yahweh will defeat it, and its soldiers will run away back to their distant homes.

Israelite soldiers will chase them,

and they will scatter like the chaff that the wind scatters on the hills

or like the tumbleweed that storms blow away.

14 It will be as if the enemies who terrify us so much

disappear in a single night.

That is what will happen to those who invade our land

and try to take our possessions.