Isaiah 17 :: New International Version (NIV)

A Prophecy Against Damascus

Isa 17:1A prophecy against Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.

Isa 17:2The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid.

Isa 17:3The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus; the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the Israelites,”

declares the LORD Almighty.

Isa 17:4

Isa 17:4“In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away.

Isa 17:5

Isa 17:5It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain, gathering the grain in their arms— as when someone gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

Isa 17:6

Isa 17:6Yet some gleanings will remain, as when an olive tree is beaten, leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches, four or five on the fruitful boughs,”

declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

Isa 17:7

Isa 17:7In that day people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

Isa 17:8

Isa 17:8They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles[fn] and the incense altars their fingers have made.

Isa 17:9

Isa 17:9In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

Isa 17:10

Isa 17:10You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines,

Isa 17:11

Isa 17:11though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain.

Isa 17:12

Isa 17:12Woe to the many nations that rage— they rage like the raging sea! Woe to the peoples who roar— they roar like the roaring of great waters!

Isa 17:13

Isa 17:13Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when he rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale.

Isa 17:14

Isa 17:14In the evening, sudden terror! Before the morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who loot us, the lot of those who plunder us.

See the NIV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

NIV Footnotes

(17:8)

That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah

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