Isaiah 16

• 1. Moab's refugees at Sela send lambs to Jerusalem as a token of alliance with the king of Judah.
• 2. The women of Moab are left like homeless birds at the shallow crossings of the Arnon River.
• 3. "Help us," they cry. "Defend us against our enemies. Protect us from their relentless attack. Do not betray us.
• 4. Let our outcasts stay among you. Hide them from our enemies until the terror is past." When oppression and destruction have ceased and enemy raiders have disappeared,
• 5. then David's throne will be established by love. From that throne a faithful king will reign, one who always does what is just and right.
• 6. Is this Moab, the proud land we have heard so much about? Its pride and insolence are all gone now!
• 7. The entire land of Moab weeps. Yes, you people of Moab, mourn for the delicacies of Kir-hareseth.
• 8. Weep for the abandoned farms of Heshbon and the vineyards at Sibmah. The wine from those vineyards used to make the rulers of the nations drunk. Moab was once like a spreading grapevine. Her tendrils spread out as far as Jazer and trailed out into the desert. Her shoots once reached as far as the Dead Sea.
• 9. But now the enemy has completely destroyed that vine. So I wail and lament for Jazer and the vineyards of Sibmah. My tears will flow for Heshbon and Elealeh, for their summer fruits and harvests have all been destroyed.
• 10. Gone now is the gladness; gone is the joy of harvest. The happy singing in the vineyards will be heard no more. The treading out of grapes in the winepresses has ceased forever. I have ended all their harvest joys.
• 11. I will weep for Moab. My sorrow for Kir-hareseth will be very great.
• 12. On the hilltops the people of Moab will pray in anguish to their idols, but it will do them no good. They will cry to the gods in their temples, but no one will come to save them.
• 13. The LORD has already said this about Moab in the past.
• 14. But now the LORD says, "Within three years, without fail, the glory of Moab will be ended, and few of its people will be left alive."

Isaiah 17

• 1. This message came to me concerning Damascus: "Look, Damascus will disappear! It will become a heap of ruins.
• 2. The cities of Aroer will be deserted. Sheep will graze in the streets and lie down unafraid. There will be no one to chase them away.
• 3. The fortified cities of Israel will also be destroyed, and the power of Damascus will end. The few left in Aram will share the fate of Israel's departed glory," says the LORD Almighty.
• 4. "In that day the glory of Israel will be very dim, for poverty will stalk the land.
• 5. Israel will be abandoned like the grainfields in the valley of Rephaim after the harvest.
• 6. Only a few of its people will be left, like the stray olives left on the tree after the harvest. Only two or three remain in the highest branches, four or five out on the tips of the limbs. Yes, Israel will be stripped bare of people," says the LORD, the God of Israel.
• 7. Then at last the people will think of their Creator and have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
• 8. They will no longer ask their idols for help or worship what their own hands have made. They will never again bow down to their Asherah poles or burn incense on the altars they built.
• 9. Their largest cities will be as deserted as overgrown thickets. They will become like the cities the Amorites abandoned when the Israelites came here so long ago.
• 10. Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you--the Rock who can hide you. You may plant the finest imported grapevines,
• 11. and they may grow so well that they blossom on the very morning you plant them, but you will never pick any grapes from them. Your only harvest will be a load of grief and incurable pain.
• 12. Look! The armies rush forward like waves thundering toward the shore.
• 13. But though they roar like breakers on a beach, God will silence them. They will flee like chaff scattered by the wind or like dust whirling before a storm.
• 14. In the evening Israel waits in terror, but by dawn its enemies are dead. This is the just reward of those who plunder and destroy the people of God.

Isaiah 18

• 1. Destruction is certain for the land of Ethiopia, which lies at the headwaters of the Nile. Its winged sailboats glide along the river,
• 2. and ambassadors are sent in fast boats down the Nile. Go home, swift messengers! Take a message to your land divided by rivers, to your tall, smooth-skinned people, who are feared far and wide for their conquests and destruction.
• 3. When I raise my battle flag on the mountain, let all the world take notice. When I blow the trumpet, listen!
• 4. For the LORD has told me this: "I will watch quietly from my dwelling place--as quietly as the heat rises on a summer day, or as the dew forms on an autumn morning during the harvest."
• 5. Even before you begin your attack, while your plans are ripening like grapes, the LORD will cut you off as though with pruning shears. He will snip your spreading branches.
• 6. Your mighty army will be left dead in the fields for the mountain birds and wild animals to eat. The vultures will tear at corpses all summer. The wild animals will gnaw at bones all winter.
• 7. But the time will come when the LORD Almighty will receive gifts from this land divided by rivers, from this tall, smooth-skinned people, who are feared far and wide for their conquests and destruction. They will bring the gifts to the LORD Almighty in Jerusalem, the place where his name dwells.

New Living Translation: 242 of 324 days.