Isaiah16

¹Send the tribute lamb to the ruler of the land, From Sela by way of the wilderness to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

²Then, like fluttering birds or scattered nestlings, The daughters of Moab will be at the crossing places of the Arnon.

³“Give us advice, make a decision; Cast your shadow like night at high noon; Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.

⁴Let the outcasts of Moab stay with you; Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.” For the oppressor has come to an end, destruction has ceased, Oppressors have been removed from the land.

⁵A throne will be established in faithfulness, And a judge will sit on it in trustworthiness in the tent of David; Moreover, he will seek justice, And be prompt in righteousness.

⁶We have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride; Even of his arrogance, pride, and fury; His idle boasts are false.

⁷Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail. You will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth As those who are utterly stricken.

⁸For the fields of Heshbon have withered, the vines of Sibmah as well; The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts; Its tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea.

⁹Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah; I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh; For the shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away.

¹⁰Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful field; In the vineyards also there will be no cries of joy or jubilant shouting, No treader treads out wine in the presses, For I have made the shouting to cease.

¹¹Therefore my inner being sounds like a harp for Moab. And my heart for Kir-hareseth.

¹²So it will come about when Moab presents himself, When he tires himself upon his high place And comes to his sanctuary to pray, That he will not prevail.

¹³This is the word which the Lord spoke earlier concerning Moab.

¹⁴But now the Lord has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a hired worker would count them, the glory of Moab will become contemptible along with all his great population, and his remnant will be very small and impotent.”