Isaiah 16–18

Chapter 16

¹They have sent lambs to the ruler of the land,

from Sela, by way of the desert,

to the mount of the daughter of Zion.

²Like fluttering birds,

like scattered nestlings,

so are the daughters of Moab

at the fords of the Arnon.

³“Give counsel,

grant justice;

make your shade like night

at the height of noon;

hide the outcasts,

betray not the fugitive;

⁴let the outcasts of Moab

sojourn among you;

be a refuge to them

from the destroyer.

When the oppressor is no more,

and destruction has ceased,

and he who tramples under foot

has vanished from the land,

⁵then a throne will be established in steadfast love

and on it will sit in faithfulness

in the tent of David

one who judges and seeks justice

and is swift to do righteousness.”

⁶We have heard of the pride of Moab,

how proud he was;

of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence—

his boasts are false.

⁷Therefore let Moab wail,

let every one wail for Moab.

Mourn, utterly stricken,

for the raisin-cakes of Kir-hareseth.

⁸For the fields of Heshbon languish,

and the vine of Sibmah;

the lords of the nations

have struck down its branches,

which reached to Jazer

and strayed to the desert;

its shoots spread abroad

and passed over the sea.

⁹Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jazer

for the vine of Sibmah;

I drench you with my tears,

O Heshbon and Ele-aleh;

for upon your fruit and your harvest

the battle shout has fallen.

¹⁰And joy and gladness are taken away

from the fruitful field;

and in the vineyards no songs are sung,

no shouts are raised;

no treader treads out wine in the presses;

the vintage shout is hushed.^d

¹¹Therefore my soul moans like a lyre for Moab,

and my heart for Kir-heres.

¹²And when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself upon the high place, when he comes to his sanctuary to pray, he will not prevail.

¹³This is the word which the Lord spoke concerning Moab in the past. ¹⁴But now the Lord says, “In three years, like the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt, in spite of all his great multitude, and those who survive will be very few and feeble.”

Chapter 17

¹An oracle concerning Damascus.

Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city,

and will become a heap of ruins.

²Her cities will be deserted for ever;^e

they will be for flocks,

which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.

³The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,

and the kingdom from Damascus;

and the remnant of Syria will be

like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴And in that day

the glory of Jacob will be brought low,

and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.

⁵And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain

and his arm harvests the ears,

and as when one gleans the ears of grain

in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Gleanings will be left in it,

as when an olive tree is beaten—

two or three berries

in the top of the highest bough,

four or five

on the branches of a fruit tree, says the Lord God of Israel.

⁷In that day men will regard their Maker, and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel; ⁸they will not have regard for the altars, the work of their hands, and they will not look to what their own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

⁹In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the Hivites and the Amorites, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,

and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;

therefore, though you plant pleasant plants

and set out slips of an alien god,

¹¹though you make them grow on the day that you plant them,

and make them blossom in the morning that you sow;

yet the harvest will flee away

in a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹²Ah, the thunder of many peoples,

they thunder like the thundering of the sea!

Ah, the roar of nations,

they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

¹³The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,

but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,

chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind

and whirling dust before the storm.

¹⁴At evening time, behold, terror!

Before morning, they are no more!

This is the portion of those who despoil us,

and the lot of those who plunder us.

Chapter 18

¹Ah, land of whirring wings which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;

²which sends ambassadors by the Nile,

in vessels of papyrus upon the waters!

Go, you swift messengers,

to a nation, tall and smooth,

to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering,

whose land the rivers divide.

³All you inhabitants of the world,

you who dwell on the earth,

when a signal is raised on the mountains, look!

When a trumpet is blown, hear!

⁴For thus the Lord said to me:

“I will quietly look from my dwelling

like clear heat in sunshine,

like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,

and the flower becomes a ripening grape,

he will cut off the shoots with pruning hooks,

and the spreading branches he will hew away.

⁶They shall all of them be left

to the birds of prey of the mountains

and to the beasts of the earth.

And the birds of prey will summer upon them,

and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them.

⁷At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord of hosts

from a people tall and smooth,

from a people feared near and far,

a nation mighty and conquering,

whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.