Isa 17 | LSB | STEP | The oracle concerning Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city And will become a fallen ruin.

Isaiah 17

An Oracle Concerning Damascus

1 The ^{▼▼Or burden of}oracle concerning Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city
And will become a fallen ruin.
2 “The cities ^{▼▼Gr forever and ever}of Aroer are forsaken;
They will be for flocks, and they will lie down in them;
And there will be no one to cause them to tremble.
3 “And the ^{▼▼Or fortification}fortified city will cease from Ephraim,
And ^{▼▼Or royal power, kingdom}sovereignty from Damascus
And the remnant of Aram;
They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,”
Declares Yahweh of hosts.
4 Now it will be in that day, that the glory of Jacob will ^{▼▼Lit become thin}wane,
And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5 And it will be even like the ^{▼▼Lit gathering of the harvest, the standing grain}reaper gathering the standing grain,
As his arm harvests the ears of grain,
Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain
In the valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleanings will remain in it like the ^{▼▼Lit striking}shaking of an olive tree,
Two or three olives on the topmost branch,
Four or five on the twigs of a fruitful tree,
Declares Yahweh, the God of Israel.
7 In that day man will have regard for his Maker
And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.
8 He will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands,
Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made,
Even the ^{▼▼Wooden symbols of a female deity}Asherim and ^{▼▼Or sun pillars}incense stands.
9 In that day ^{▼▼Man’s}their strong cities will be like ^{▼▼Gr the deserted places of the Amorites and the Hivites which they abandoned}forsaken places in the forest,
Or like ^{▼▼Or the treetop}branches which they forsook before the sons of Israel;
And ^{▼▼Lit it}the land will be a desolation.
10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the rock of your strong defense.
Therefore you plant delightful plants
And set them with vine branches of a strange god.
11 In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you cause your seed to flourish;
But the harvest will be a heap
In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.
12 Alas, the uproar of many peoples
Who roar like the roaring of the seas,
And the rumbling of nations
Who rumble on like the rumbling of mighty waters!
13 The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,
But He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
And be pursued like chaff in the mountains before the wind,
Or like whirling dust before a whirlwind.
14 At evening time, behold, there is terror!
Before morning they are no more.
^{▼▼ Lit This}Such will be the portion of those who pillage us
And the lot of those who plunder us.