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Isaiah 17 (CEV)

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¹ This is a message about Damascus: Damascus is doomed! It will end up in ruins. ² The villages around Aroer will be deserted, with only sheep living there and no one to bother them. ³ Israel will lose its fortresses. The kingdom of Damascus will be destroyed; its survivors will suffer the same fate as Israel. The LORD All-Powerful has promised this. ⁴ When that time comes, the glorious nation of Israel will be brought down; its prosperous people will be skin and bones. ⁵ Israel will be like wheat fields in Rephaim Valley picked clean of grain. ⁶ It will be like an olive tree beaten with a stick, leaving two or three olives or maybe four or five on the highest or most fruitful branches. The LORD God of Israel has promised this. ⁷ At that time the people will turn and trust their Creator, the holy God of Israel. ⁸ They have built altars and places for burning incense to their goddess Asherah, and they have set up sacred poles for her. But they will stop worshiping at these places. ⁹ Israel captured powerful cities and chased out the people who lived there. But these cities will lie in ruins, covered over with weeds and underbrush. ¹⁰ Israel, you have forgotten the God who saves you, the one who is the mighty rock where you find protection. You plant the finest flowers to honor a foreign god. ¹¹ The plants may sprout and blossom that very same morning, but it will do you no good, because you will suffer endless agony. ¹² The nations are a noisy, thunderous sea. ¹³ But even if they roar like a fearsome flood, God will give the command to turn them back. They will be like dust, or like a tumbleweed blowing across the hills in a windstorm. ¹⁴ In the evening their attack is fierce, but by morning they are destroyed. This is what happens to those who raid and rob us.