The Living Bible (223 page)

Isaiah
15

Here is God’s message to Moab: In one night your cities of Ar and Kir will be destroyed.
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 Your people in Dibon go mourning to their temples to weep for the fate of Nebo and Medeba; they shave their heads in sorrow and cut off their beards.
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 They wear sackcloth through the streets, and from every home comes the sound of weeping.
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 The cries from the cities of Heshbon and Elealeh are heard far away, even in Jahaz. The bravest warriors of Moab cry in utter terror.

    
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 My heart weeps for Moab! His people flee to Zoar and Eglath. Weeping, they climb the upward road to Luhith, and their crying will be heard all along the road to Horonaim.
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 Even Nimrim River is desolate! The grassy banks are dried up and the tender plants are gone.
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 The desperate refugees take only the possessions they can carry and flee across the Brook of Willows.
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 The whole land of Moab is a land of weeping from one end to the other.
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 The stream near Dibon will run red with blood, but I am not through with Dibon yet! Lions will hunt down the survivors, both those who escape and those who remain.

Isaiah
16

Moab’s refugees at Sela send lambs as a token of alliance with the king of Judah.
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 The women of Moab are left at the fords of the Arnon River like homeless birds.
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 The ambassadors, who accompany the gift to Jerusalem
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plead for advice and help. “Give us sanctuary. Protect us. Do not turn us over to our foes.
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 Let our outcasts stay among you; hide them from our enemies! God will reward you for your kindness to us. If you let Moab’s fugitives settle among you, then when the terror is past, God will establish David’s throne forever, and on that throne he will place a just and righteous King.”

    
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 Is this proud Moab, concerning which we heard so much? His arrogance and insolence are all gone now!
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 Therefore all Moab weeps. Yes, Moab, you will mourn for stricken Kir-hareseth,
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 and for the abandoned farms of Heshbon and the vineyards at Sibmah. The enemy warlords have cut down the best of the grapevines; their armies spread out as far as Jazer in the deserts, and even down to the sea.
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 So I wail and lament for Jazer and the vineyards of Sibmah. My tears shall flow for Heshbon and Elealeh, for destruction has come upon their summer fruits and harvests.
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 Gone now is the gladness, gone the joy of harvest. The happy singing in the vineyards will be heard no more; the treading out of the grapes in the winepresses has ceased forever. I have ended all their harvest joys.

    
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 I will weep, weep, weep, for Moab; and my sorrow for Kir-hareseth will be very great.
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 The people of Moab will pray in anguish to their idols at the tops of the hills, but it will do no good; they will cry to their gods in their idol temples, but none will come to save them.
^13-14
 All this concerning Moab has been said before; but now the Lord says that within three years, without fail, the glory of Moab shall be ended, and few of all its people will be left alive.

Isaiah
17

This is God’s message to Damascus, capital of Syria:

    
Look, Damascus is gone! It is no longer a city—it has become a heap of ruins!
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 The cities of Aroer are deserted. Sheep pasture there, lying quiet and unafraid, with no one to chase them away.
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 The strength of Israel and the power of Damascus will end, and the remnant of Syria shall be destroyed. For as Israel’s glory departed, so theirs, too, will disappear, declares the Lord Almighty.
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 Yes, the glory of Israel will be very dim when poverty stalks the land.
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 Israel will be as abandoned as the harvested grain fields in the valley of Rephaim.
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 Oh, a very few of her people will be left, just as a few stray olives are left on the trees when the harvest is ended, two or three in the highest branches, four or five out on the tips of the limbs. That is how it will be in Damascus and Israel—stripped bare of people except for a few of the poor who remain.

    
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 Then at last they will think of God their Creator and have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
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 They will no longer ask their idols for help in that day, neither will they worship what their hands have made! They will no longer have respect for the images of Ashtaroth and the sun idols.

    
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 Their largest cities will be as deserted as the distant wooded hills and mountaintops and become like the abandoned cities of the Amorites, deserted when the Israelites approached (so long ago).
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¹⁰
 Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you—the Rock who can hide you; therefore, even though you plant a wonderful, rare crop of greatest value,
¹¹
 and though it grows so well that it will blossom on the very morning that you plant it, yet you will never harvest it—your only harvest will be a pile of grief and incurable pain.

    
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 Look, see the armies thundering toward God’s land.
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 But though they roar like breakers rolling upon a beach, God will silence them. They will flee, scattered like chaff by the wind, like whirling dust before a storm.
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 In the evening Israel waits in terror, but by dawn her enemies are dead. This is the just reward of those who plunder and destroy the people of God.

Isaiah
18

Ah, land beyond the upper reaches of the Nile,
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where winged sailboats glide along the river!
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 Land that sends ambassadors in fast boats down the Nile! Let swift messengers return to you, O strong and supple nation feared far and wide, a conquering, destroying nation whose land the upper Nile divides.
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And this is the message sent to you:

    
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 When I raise my battle flag upon the mountain, let all the world take notice! When I blow the trumpet, listen!
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 For the Lord has told me this: Let your mighty army now advance against the land of Israel.
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God will watch quietly from his Temple in Jerusalem—serene as on a pleasant summer day or a lovely autumn morning during harvesttime.
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 But before you have begun the attack, and while your plans are ripening like grapes, he will cut you off as though with pruning shears. He will snip the spreading tendrils.
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 Your mighty army will be left dead on the field for the mountain birds and wild animals to eat; the vultures will tear bodies all summer, and the wild animals will gnaw bones all winter.
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 But the time will come when that strong and mighty nation, a terror to all both far and near, that conquering, destroying nation whose land the rivers divide, will bring gifts to the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem, where he has placed his name.

Isaiah
19

This is God’s message concerning Egypt:

    
Look, the Lord is coming against Egypt, riding on a swift cloud; the idols of Egypt tremble; the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.
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 I will set them to fighting against each other—brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, province against province.
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 Her wise counselors are all at their wits’ end to know what to do; they plead with their idols for wisdom and call upon mediums, wizards, and witches to show them what to do.
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 I will hand over Egypt to a hard, cruel master, to a vicious king, says the Lord Almighty.

    
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 And the waters of the Nile will fail to rise and flood the fields; the ditches will be parched and dry,
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 their channels fouled with rotting reeds.
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 All green things along the riverbank will wither and blow away. All crops will perish; everything will die.
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 The fishermen will weep for lack of work; those who fish with hooks and those who use the nets will all be unemployed.
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 The weavers will have no flax or cotton, for the crops will fail.
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 Great men and small—all will be crushed and broken.

    
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 What fools the counselors of Zoan are! Their best counsel to the king of Egypt is utterly stupid and wrong. Will they still boast of their wisdom? Will they dare tell Pharaoh about the long line of wise men they have come from?
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 What has happened to your “wise counselors,” O Pharaoh? Where has their wisdom gone? If they are wise, let them tell you what the Lord is going to do to Egypt.
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 The “wise men” from Zoan are also fools, and those from Memphis are utterly deluded. They are the best you can find, but they have ruined Egypt with their foolish counsel.
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 The Lord has sent a spirit of foolishness on them, so that all their suggestions are wrong; they make Egypt stagger like a sick drunkard.
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 Egypt cannot be saved by anything or anybody—no one can show her the way.

    
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 In that day the Egyptians will be as weak as women, cowering in fear beneath the upraised fist of God.
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 Just to speak the name of Israel will strike deep terror in their hearts, for the Lord Almighty has laid his plans against them.

    
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 At that time five of the cities of Egypt will follow the Lord Almighty and will begin to speak the Hebrew language.
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One of these will be Heliopolis, “The City of the Sun.”
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 And there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt in those days and a monument to the Lord at its border.
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 This will be for a sign of loyalty to the Lord Almighty; then when they cry to the Lord for help against those who oppress them, he will send them a savior—and he shall deliver them.

    
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 In that day the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians. Yes, they will know the Lord and give their sacrifices and offerings to him; they will make promises to God and keep them.
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 The Lord will smite Egypt and then restore her! For the Egyptians will turn to the Lord and he will listen to their plea and heal them.

    
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 In that day Egypt and Iraq
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will be connected by a highway, and the Egyptians and the Iraqis will move freely back and forth between their lands, and they shall worship the same God.
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 And Israel will be their ally; the three will be together, and Israel will be a blessing to them.
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 For the Lord will bless Egypt and Iraq because of their friendship
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with Israel. He will say, “Blessed be Egypt, my people; blessed be Iraq, the land I have made; blessed be Israel, my inheritance!”