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Isaiah 17
1The burden of Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.
2The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.
3The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” says the LORD of Armies.
4“It will happen in that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim.
6Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost of a fruitful tree,” says the LORD, the God of Israel.
7In , people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
8They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherah poles or the incense altars.
9In , their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.
10For you have forgotten the God of your , and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.
11In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12Ah, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!
13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
14At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
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Questions this passage answers
Who is God?
God is the one living Creator who made everything and depends on nothing, and Scripture answers this question mainly by telling us his character rather than by defining his substance. When God described himself to Moses he said he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and truth, and yet will by no means clear the guilty. The New Testament adds that this God is finally known in Jesus Christ, who has made him known.
Can the Bible be trusted?
Scripture claims to be true and invites examination rather than avoiding it. It says God's word is truth and that it stands when everything else fades, and the New Testament writers appeal to eyewitnesses, named places and public events rather than to private experience. Trust in Scripture is finally trust in the God who speaks in it, and the clearest reason a Christian gives for that trust is that Jesus treated these writings as God's own word.
What is sin?
Scripture defines sin as lawlessness, as falling short of God's glory, and as failing to do the good we know we should do. It is not only a list of bad actions but a condition of the heart that produces them, and it is first against God rather than only against people. Scripture also says all have sinned, that its wage is death, and that God is faithful to forgive those who confess.
What does the Bible say about fear?
Scripture never tells a frightened person that fear is imaginary. It says do not be afraid hundreds of times, and almost always attaches a reason rather than a technique: I am with you, I have redeemed you, you are of more value than sparrows. It also distinguishes the fear that must go from the fear of the Lord, which is commanded and which shrinks every smaller fear.