Isaiah 17:4–11

⁴The Lord said, “A day is coming when Israel’s greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty. ⁵Israel will be like a field where the corn has been cut and harvested, as desolate as a field in the valley of Rephaim when it has been picked bare. ⁶Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the Lord God of Israel, have spoken.”

⁷When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel. ⁸They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork—symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense.

⁹When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites^d abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel.

¹⁰Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and who protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens^e in order to worship a foreign god. ¹¹But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain.