Isaiah 17:4–11

The Day Is Coming

^4–6“The Day is coming when Jacob’s robust splendor goes pale

and his well-fed body turns skinny.

The country will be left empty, picked clean

as a field harvested by field hands.

She’ll be like a few stalks of barley left standing

in the lush Valley of Rephaim after harvest,

Or like the couple of ripe olives overlooked

in the top of the olive tree,

Or the four or five apples

that the pickers couldn’t reach in the orchard.”

Decree of the God of Israel.

^7–8Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel. They’ll lose interest in all the stuff they’ve made—altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, hand-made religion—however impressive it is.

⁹And yes, the Day is coming when their fortress cities will be abandoned—the very same cities that the Hivites and Amorites abandoned when Israel invaded! And the country will be empty, desolate.

You Have Forgotten God

^10–11And why? Because you have forgotten God-Your-Salvation,

not remembered your Rock-of-Refuge.

And so, even though you are very religious,

planting all sorts of bushes and herbs and trees

to honor and influence your fertility gods,

And even though you make them grow so well,

bursting with buds and sprouts and blossoms,

Nothing will come of them. Instead of a harvest

you’ll get nothing but grief and pain, pain, pain.