Isaiah 16-18
Modern English Version
16 Send the lamb
to the ruler of the land
from Sela by way of the wilderness,
to the mount of the daughter of Zion.
2 For it shall be that as a wandering bird
cast out of the nest,
so the daughters of Moab shall be
at the fords of Arnon.
3 “Take counsel,
execute justice,
make your shadow as the night
at the height of noon.
Hide the outcasts,
do not betray the fugitive.
4 Let my outcasts dwell with you, Moab;
be a hiding place to them from the face of the destroyer.”
For the extortioner has come to an end;
the destroyer ceases;
the oppressors are consumed out of the land.
5 In mercy the throne shall be established;
and one who judges and seeks justice
and is diligent in righteousness
shall sit on it in truth
in the tabernacle of David, judging.
6 We have heard of the pride of Moab;
he is very proud,
even of his haughtiness and his pride and his wrath;
but his lies shall not be so.
7 Therefore Moab shall wail for Moab;
everyone shall wail.
For the loss of raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth you shall mourn;
surely they are destroyed.
8 For the fields of Heshbon languish,
and the vine of Sibmah;
the lords of the nations
have broken down its choice plants;
they have come as far as Jazer
and wandered through the wilderness.
Her branches are stretched out;
they are passed over the sea.
9 Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer,
the vine of Sibmah;
I will water you with my tears,
O Heshbon and Elealeh.
For the shouting for your summer fruits
and for your harvest has fallen away.
10 Gladness and joy are taken away out of the plentiful field,
and in the vineyards there shall be no singing,
nor shall there be shouting;
the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses.
I have made their vintage shouting to cease.
11 Therefore my heart shall sound like a harp for Moab,
and my inward parts for Kir Hareseth.
12 When it is seen that Moab
is weary on the high place,
he shall come to his sanctuary to pray;
but he shall not prevail.
13 This is the word that the Lord has spoken earlier concerning Moab. 14 But now the Lord has spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt with all his great population, and his remnant shall be very small and feeble.
An Oracle Concerning Damascus
17 The oracle of Damascus.
See, Damascus will cease from being a city;
it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken;
they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down,
and no one shall make them afraid.
3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus,
and the remnant of Aram;
they shall be as the glory of the sons of Israel,
says the Lord of Hosts.
4 In that day the glory of Jacob shall decrease,
and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.
5 It shall be as when the harvestman gathers the corn
and reaps the ears with his arm,
and it shall be as he who gathers ears
in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it,
as the shaking of an olive tree,
two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough,
four or five in its outmost fruitful branches,
says the Lord God of Israel.
7 On that day a man shall look to his Maker,
and his eyes shall have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
8 He shall not look to the altars,
the work of his hands,
nor shall he respect what his fingers have made,
either the groves or the images.
9 In that day his strong cities shall be as a forsaken bough and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the sons of Israel; and there shall be a desolation.
10 Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation
and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength,
therefore you plant pleasant plants
and set them with vine slips of a strange god;
11 in the day that you plant it, you carefully fence it in,
and in the morning you make your seed to flourish;
but the harvest shall be a heap of ruins
in the day of grief and desperate pain.
12 Woe to the multitude of many people
who make a noise like the noise of the seas,
and the rushing of many peoples
who make a rumble like the rumbling of mighty waters!
13 The nations rumble like the rumbling of many waters;
but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off,
and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
and like rolling dust before the whirlwind.
14 At evening time, sudden terror!
And before the morning, they are no more.
This is the portion of those who plunder us,
and the lot of those who rob us.
An Oracle Concerning Ethiopia
18 Woe to the land vibrating with wings,
which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
2 which sends ambassadors by the sea,
even in vessels of reeds on the waters, saying,
“Go, swift messengers,
to a nation tall and smooth,
to a people feared far and wide,
a nation strong and oppressive,
whose land the rivers have divided.”
3 All you inhabitants of the world,
and dwellers on the earth:
When he lifts up a banner on the mountains,
you will see it;
and when he blows a trumpet,
you will hear it.
4 For so the Lord said to me:
I will look from My dwelling place quietly,
like dazzling heat in the sunshine,
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
5 For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect
and the sour grape is ripening in the flower,
then He shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks
and take away and cut down the branches.
6 They shall be left together for the fowl of the mountains
and for the beasts of the earth;
and the fowl shall spend the summer feeding on them,
and all the beasts of the earth shall spend the winter on them.
7 In that time a present shall be brought to the Lord of Hosts
from a people tall and smooth,
and from a people feared far and wide,
a nation strong and oppressive,
whose land the rivers have divided,
to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, even Mount Zion.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.