Isaiah 16:1-14
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Message against Moab continued (1-14)
16 Send a ram to the ruler of the land,From Seʹla through the wildernessTo the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
2 Like a bird chased away from its nest,+So the daughters of Moʹab will be at the fords of Arʹnon.+
3 “Offer counsel, carry out the decision.
Make your shadow at high noon like the night.
Conceal the dispersed and do not betray those fleeing.
4 May my dispersed ones reside in you, O Moʹab.
Become a place of concealment to them because of the destroyer.+
The oppressor will reach his end,The destruction will come to an end,And those trampling others down will perish from the earth.
5 Then a throne will be firmly established in loyal love.
The one who sits on it in the tent of David will be faithful;+He will judge fairly and will swiftly execute righteousness.”+
6 We have heard about the pride of Moʹab—he is very proud+—His haughtiness and his pride and his fury;+But his empty talk will come to nothing.
7 So Moʹab will wail for Moʹab;They will all wail.+
Those who are stricken will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-harʹe·seth.+
8 For the terraces of Heshʹbon+ have withered,The vine of Sibʹmah,+The rulers of the nations have trampled its bright-red branches;*They had reached as far as Jaʹzer;+They had extended into the wilderness.
Its shoots had spread out and gone as far as the sea.
9 That is why I will weep over the vine of Sibʹmah as I weep for Jaʹzer.
With my tears I will drench you, O Heshʹbon and E·le·aʹleh,+Because the shouting over your summer fruit and your harvest has ended.*
10 Rejoicing and joyfulness have been taken away from the orchard,And there are no songs of joy or shouting in the vineyards.+
The treader no longer treads out wine in the presses,For I have caused the shouting to cease.+
11 That is why deep within me I am boisterous over Moʹab,+Like the strumming of a harp,And my innermost being over Kir-harʹe·seth.+
12 Even when Moʹab wears himself out on the high place and goes to pray in his sanctuary, he will accomplish nothing.+
13 This is the word that Jehovah previously spoke concerning Moʹab.
14 And now Jehovah says: “Within three years, like the years of a hired worker,* the glory of Moʹab will be disgraced with much tumult of every sort, and those who remain will be very few and insignificant.”+
Footnotes
^ Or “its branches laden with red grapes.”
^ Or possibly, “Because the battle cry has descended on your summer fruit and your harvest.”
^ Or “counted as carefully as a hired worker does”; that is, in exactly three years.
