Isaiah 17:4–11

⁴“At that time Israel’s wealth will all be gone.

Israel will be like someone who has lost much weight from sickness.

⁵That time will be like the grain harvest in the Valley of Rephaim.

The workers cut the wheat.

Then they cut the heads of grain from the plants

and collect the grain.

⁶That time will also be like the olive harvest,

when a few olives are left.

Two or three olives are left in the top branches.

Four or five olives are left on full branches,” says the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷At that time people will look to God, their Maker;

their eyes will see the Holy One of Israel.

⁸They will not trust the altars they have made,

nor will they trust what their hands have made,

not even the Asherah idols and altars.

⁹In that day all their strong cities will be empty. They will be like the cities the Hivites and the Amorites left when the Israelites came to take the land. Everything will be ruined.

¹⁰You have forgotten the God who saves you;

you have not remembered that God is your place of safety.

You plant the finest grapevines

and grapevines from faraway places.

¹¹You plant your grapevines one day and try to make them grow,

and the next day you make them blossom.

But at harvest time everything will be dead;

a sickness will kill all the plants.