Isaiah 17–23

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.

Chapter 19

Message to Egypt

¹The ^1aoracle concerning ^bEgypt.

Behold, the Lord is ^criding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;

The ^didols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,

And the ^eheart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

²“So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;

And they will ^aeach fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,

City against city and kingdom against kingdom.

³“Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them;

And I will confound their strategy,

So that ^athey will resort to idols and ghosts of the dead

And to ¹mediums and spiritists.

⁴“Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a ^acruel master,

And a ¹mighty king will rule over them,” declares the Lord ²God of hosts.

^5aThe waters from the sea will dry up,

And the river will be parched and dry.

⁶The ^1acanals will emit a stench,

The ^2bstreams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;

^cThe reeds and rushes will rot away.

⁷The bulrushes by the ^aNile, by the ¹edge of the Nile

And all the sown fields by the Nile

Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

⁸And the ^afishermen will lament,

And all those who cast a ¹line into the Nile will mourn,

And those who spread nets on the waters will ²pine away.

⁹Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax

And the weavers of white ^acloth will be ¹utterly dejected.

¹⁰And ¹the ^apillars of Egypt will be crushed;

All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.

¹¹The princes of ^1aZoan are mere fools;

The advice of Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become ²stupid.

How can you men say to Pharaoh,

“I am a son of the ^bwise, a son of ancient kings”?

¹²Well then, where are your wise men?

Please let them tell you,

And let them ¹understand what the Lord of hosts

Has ^apurposed against Egypt.

¹³The princes of ¹Zoan have acted foolishly,

The princes of ^aMemphis are deluded;

Those who are the ^bcornerstone of her tribes

Have ²led Egypt astray.

¹⁴The Lord has mixed within her a spirit of ^adistortion;

^bThey have led Egypt astray in all ¹that it does,

As a ^cdrunken man ²staggers in his vomit.

¹⁵There will be no work for Egypt

^aWhich its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in ^adread because of the ^bwaving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He is going to wave over them.

¹⁷The land of Judah will become a ¹terror to Egypt; everyone ²to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the ^apurpose of the Lord of hosts which He is purposing against them.

¹⁸In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and ^aswearing allegiance to the Lord of hosts; one will be called the City of ¹Destruction.

¹⁹In that day there will be an ^aaltar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a ^bpillar to the Lord near its border.

²⁰It will become a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and He will send them a ^aSavior and a ^1bChampion, and He will deliver them.

²¹Thus the Lord will make Himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day. They will even worship with ^asacrifice and offering, and will make a vow to the Lord and perform it.

²²The Lord will strike Egypt, striking but ^ahealing; so they will ^breturn to the Lord, and He will respond to them and will heal them.

²³In that day there will be a ^ahighway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will ^bworship with the Assyrians.

²⁴In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth,

²⁵whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is ^aEgypt My people, and Assyria ^bthe work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

Chapter 20

Prophecy about Egypt and Ethiopia

¹In the year that the ^1acommander came to ^bAshdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it,

²at that time the Lord spoke through ^aIsaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go and loosen the ^bsackcloth from your hips and take your ^cshoes off your feet.” And he did so, going ^dnaked and barefoot.

³And the Lord said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a ^1asign and token against Egypt and ^2bCush,

⁴so the ^aking of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, ^byoung and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the ¹shame of Egypt.

⁵“Then they will be ^adismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their ^bboast.

⁶“So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled ^afor help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, ^bhow shall we escape?’ ”

Chapter 21

God Commands That Babylon Be Taken

¹The ^1aoracle concerning the ^2bwilderness of the sea.

As ^cwindstorms in the ³Negev sweep on,

It comes from the wilderness, from a terrifying land.

²A ^aharsh vision has been shown to me;

The ^btreacherous one still deals treacherously, and the destroyer still destroys.

Go up, ^cElam, lay siege, Media;

I have made an end of all ¹the groaning she has caused.

³For this reason my ^aloins are full of anguish;

Pains have seized me like the pains of a ^bwoman in labor.

I am so bewildered I cannot hear, so terrified I cannot see.

⁴My ¹mind reels, ²horror overwhelms me;

The twilight I longed for has been ^aturned for me into trembling.

⁵They ^aset the table, they ¹spread out the cloth, they eat, they drink;

“Rise up, captains, oil the shields,”

⁶For thus the Lord says to me,

“Go, station the lookout, let him ^areport what he sees.

⁷“When he sees ^ariders, horsemen in pairs,

A train of donkeys, a train of camels,

Let him pay close attention, very close attention.”

⁸Then ¹the lookout called,

“^aO Lord, I stand continually by day on the watchtower,

And I am stationed every night at my guard post.

⁹“Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”

And one said, “^aFallen, fallen is Babylon;

And all the ^bimages of her gods ¹are shattered on the ground.”

¹⁰O my ^athreshed people, and my ¹afflicted of the threshing floor!

What I have heard from the Lord of hosts,

The God of Israel, I make known to you.

Oracles about Edom and Arabia

¹¹The ¹oracle concerning ^2aEdom.

One keeps calling to me from ^bSeir,

“Watchman,…