Isaiah_Chapter 17

On the implied meaning of Damascus. Look, Damascus has been abandoned and will no longer be a city, it will become a pile of chaos.

The cities of Aroer have been abandoned. It will become a place for shepherds, where the sheep will lie down and no one will be frightened.

Ephraim is no longer secure. Damascus will no longer have sovereignty, and what remains of Aram will be destroyed like the glory of the Israelites. This is what the Lord of armies has said.

On that day Jacob’s glory will become thin, and his fat body will gradually weaken.

Like the reapers, they will gather the grain and cut the ears with their hands. Like a man picking up abandoned ears in the valley of Rephaim.

There is not much left in between, just like when someone beats an olive tree and leaves only two or three fruits on the top branches, and only four or five fruits on the side branches of the multi fruit tree. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said.

On that day, people will look up to their Creator, and their eyes will be heavy on the Holy One of Israel.

They will not look up to the altar, which they have built with their own hands, nor will they value the work of their own fingers, whether it is a wooden puppet or a sun statue.

On that day, their fortified cities will be like the abandoned places in the forest and on the mountaintops, which were abandoned before the Israelites. In this way, the land became desolate.

Because you have forgotten the God who saved you, and have not remembered the rock of your power. So you plant beautiful tree seedlings and plant strange plants.

On the day of planting, put a fence around you, and in the morning bring forth the flowers you have planted. But in the days of sorrow and extreme pain, all that was harvested flew away.

Sigh, the people are clamoring like waves?? Roaming, the nations gallop like surging waters.

The nations are surging, as if many waters are surging. But God rebuked them, and they fled far away, and were pursued like the husk before the wind on the mountain, like the whirlwind before the storm.

At night there was a scare, but before morning they were gone. This is the portion obtained by those who plunder us, and the retribution of those who plunder us.