Isaiah 16-18

1Send the tribute lambs to the ruler of the land, from Sela in the desert to the mount of Daughter Zion.

2Like fluttering birds pushed out of the nest, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon:

3“Give us counsel; render a decision. Shelter us at noonday with shade as dark as night. Hide the refugees; do not betray the one who flees.

4Let my fugitives stay with you; be a refuge for Moab from the destroyer.” When the oppressor has gone, destruction has ceased, and the oppressors have vanished from the land,

5in loving devotion a throne will be established in the tent of David. A judge seeking justice and hastening righteousness will sit on it in faithfulness.

6We have heard of Moab’s pomposity, his exceeding pride and conceit, his overflowing arrogance. But his boasting is empty.

7Therefore let Moab wail; let them wail together for Moab. Moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth, you who are utterly stricken.

8For the fields of Heshbon have withered, along with the grapevines of Sibmah. The rulers of the nations have trampled its choicest vines, which had reached as far as Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots had spread out and passed over the sea.

9So I weep with Jazer for the vines of Sibmah; I drench Heshbon and Elealeh with my tears. Triumphant shouts have fallen silent over your summer fruit and your harvest.

10Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards. No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses; I have put an end to the cheering.

11Therefore my heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir-heres.

12When Moab appears on the high place, when he wearies himself and enters his sanctuary to pray, it will do him no good.

13This is the message that the LORD spoke earlier concerning Moab.

14And now the LORD says, “In three years, as a hired worker counts the years, Moab’s splendor will become an object of contempt, with all her many people. And those who are left will be few and feeble.”

1This is the burden against Damascus: “Behold, Damascus is no longer a city; it has become a heap of ruins.

2The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be left to the flocks, which will lie down with no one to fear.

3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the sovereignty from Damascus. The remnant of Aram will be like the splendor of the Israelites,” declares the LORD of Hosts.

4“In that day the splendor of Jacob will fade, and the fat of his body will waste away,

5as the reaper gathers the standing grain and harvests the ears with his arm, as one gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleanings will remain, like an olive tree that has been beaten— two or three berries atop the tree, four or five on its fruitful branches,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

7In that day men will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

8They will not look to the altars they have fashioned with their hands or to the Asherahs and incense altars they have made with their fingers.

9In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken thickets and summits, abandoned to the Israelites and to utter desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines—

11though on the day you plant you make them grow, and on that morning you help your seed sprout— yet the harvest will vanish on the day of disease and incurable pain.

12Alas, the tumult of many peoples; they rage like the roaring seas and clamoring nations; they rumble like the crashing of mighty waters.

13The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.

14In the evening, there is sudden terror! Before morning, they are no more! This is the portion of those who loot us and the lot of those who plunder us.

1Woe to the land of whirring wings, along the rivers of Cush,

2which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.

3All you people of the world and dwellers of the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it; when a ram’s horn sounds, you will hear it.

4For this is what the LORD has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife and remove and discard the branches.

6They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the land. The birds will feed on them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter.

7At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts— from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers— to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.