Isaiah 16–18

Chapter 16

Prophecy of Moab’s Devastation

^1aSend the tribute lamb to the ruler of the land,

From ^1bSela by way of the wilderness to the ^cmountain of the daughter of Zion.

²Then, like ^1afleeing birds or scattered ²nestlings,

The daughters of ^bMoab will be at the fords of the ^cArnon.

³“¹Give us advice, make a decision;

²Cast your ^ashadow like night ³at high noon;

^bHide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.

⁴“Let the ¹outcasts of Moab stay with you;

Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.”

For the extortioner has come to an end, destruction has ceased,

^aOppressors have completely disappeared from the land.

⁵A ^athrone will even be established in lovingkindness,

And a judge will sit on it in faithfulness in the tent of ^bDavid;

Moreover, he will seek justice

And be prompt in righteousness.

^6aWe have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride;

Even of his arrogance, pride, and fury;

^bHis idle boasts are ¹false.

⁷Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail.

You will moan for the ^araisin cakes of ^bKir-hareseth

As those who are utterly stricken.

⁸For the fields of ^aHeshbon have ¹withered, the vines of ^bSibmah as well;

The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters

Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts;

^cIts tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea.

⁹Therefore I will ^aweep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah;

I will drench you with my tears, O ^bHeshbon and Elealeh;

For the shouting over your ^csummer fruits and your harvest has fallen away.

^10aGladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful field;

In the ^bvineyards also there will be no cries of joy or jubilant shouting,

No ^ctreader treads out wine in the presses,

For I have made the shouting to cease.

¹¹Therefore my ^1aheart intones like a harp for Moab

And my ²inward feelings for Kir-hareseth.

¹²So it will come about when Moab ^apresents himself,

When he ^bwearies himself upon his ^chigh place

And comes to his sanctuary to pray,

That he will not prevail.

¹³This is the word which the Lord spoke earlier concerning Moab.

¹⁴But now the Lord speaks, saying, “Within three years, as ^1aa hired man would count them, the glory of ^bMoab will be degraded along with all his great population, and his remnant will be very small and ²impotent.”

Chapter 17

Prophecy about Damascus

¹The ^1aoracle concerning ^bDamascus.

“Behold, Damascus is about to be ^cremoved from being a city

And will become a ^dfallen ruin.

²“The cities ¹of ^aAroer are forsaken;

They will be for ^bflocks ²to lie down in,

And there will be ^cno one to frighten them.

³“The ^1afortified city will disappear from Ephraim,

And ²sovereignty from Damascus

And the remnant of Aram;

They will be like the ^bglory of the sons of Israel,”

Declares the Lord of hosts.

⁴Now in that day the ^aglory of Jacob will ¹fade,

And ^bthe fatness of his flesh will become lean.

⁵It will be ^aeven like the ¹reaper gathering the standing grain,

As his arm harvests the ears,

Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain

In the ^bvalley of Rephaim.

⁶Yet ^agleanings will be left in it like the ¹shaking of an olive tree,

Two or three olives on the topmost bough,

Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree,

Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷In that day man will ^ahave regard for his Maker

And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸He will not have regard for the ^aaltars, the work of his hands,

Nor will he look to that which his ^bfingers have made,

Even the ^1cAsherim and ²incense stands.

⁹In that day ¹their strong cities will be like ²forsaken places in the forest,

Or like ³branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel;

And ⁴the land will be a desolation.

¹⁰For ^ayou have forgotten the ^bGod of your salvation

And have not remembered the ^crock of your refuge.

Therefore you plant delightful plants

And set them with vine slips of a strange god.

¹¹In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,

And in the ^amorning you bring your seed to blossom;

But the harvest will ^bbe a heap

In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.

¹²Alas, the uproar of many peoples

^aWho roar like the roaring of the seas,

And the rumbling of nations

Who rush on like the ^brumbling of mighty waters!

¹³The ^anations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,

But He will ^brebuke them and they will flee far away,

And be chased ^clike chaff in the mountains before the wind,

Or like whirling dust before a gale.

¹⁴At evening time, behold, there is terror!

Before morning ^athey are no more.

¹Such will be the portion of those who plunder us

And the lot of those who pillage us.

Chapter 18

Message to Ethiopia

¹Alas, oh land of whirring wings

Which lies beyond the rivers of ^1aCush,

²Which sends envoys by the sea,

Even in ^apapyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.

Go, swift messengers, to a nation ^1btall and smooth,

To a people ^cfeared ²far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation

Whose land the rivers divide.

^3aAll you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth,

As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, ^byou will see it,

And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.

⁴For thus the Lord has told me,

“I will look ¹from My ^adwelling place quietly

Like dazzling heat in the ^2bsunshine,

Like a cloud of ^cdew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For ^abefore the harvest, as soon as the bud ¹blossoms

And the flower becomes a ripening grape,

Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives

And remove and cut away the spreading branches.

⁶They will be left together for mountain birds ^aof prey,

And for the beasts of the earth;

And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

⁷At that time a gift of homage will be brought to the Lord of hosts

¹From a ^apeople ²tall and smooth,

Even from a people feared ³far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the ^bplace of the name of the Lord of hosts, even Mount Zion.