Isaiah 16

Revised Geneva Translation

16 Send a lamb to the ruler of the world from the rock of the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter Zion.

² For it shall be as a bird that flies, and a nest forsaken. The daughters of Moab shall be at the fords of Arnon.

³ “Gather a counsel, execute judgment, make your shadow as the night in the midday. Hide those who are chased out. Do not betray him who has fled.

⁴ “Let My banished dwell with you. Moab, be their shelter from the face of the destroyer. For the extortioner shall end. The destroyer shall be consumed, the oppressor shall cease from the land.

⁵ “And in mercy shall the throne be prepared. And He shall sit upon it in steadfastness, in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hastening justice.”

⁶ We have heard of the pride of Moab (he is very proud), its pride and its arrogance and its indignation. But not so its lies.

⁷ Therefore, Moab shall howl to Moab. Everyone shall howl. For the foundations of Kir Hareseth you shall mourn. Yet they shall be stricken.

⁸ For the vineyards of Heshbon are cut down, the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the heathen have broken its principal vines. Branches stretched themselves out and went over the sea.

⁹ Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer, and of the vine of Sibmah, O Heshbon! And Elealeh, I will make you drunk with my tears, because upon your summer fruits, and upon your harvest, a shouting has fallen.

¹⁰ And gladness is taken away, and joy, out of the plentiful field. And in the vineyards shall be no singing or shouting for joy. The treader shall not tread wine in the wine presses. I have caused the rejoicing to cease.

¹¹ Therefore, my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and my core for Kir Heres.

¹² And when it shall appear that Moab shall be weary of its high places, then shall it come to its temple to pray, but it shall not prevail.

¹³ This is the Word that the LORD has spoken against Moab since that time.

¹⁴ And now the LORD has spoken, saying, “In three years (as the years of a hireling) the glory of Moab shall be despised in all the great multitude. And the remnant shall be very small and feeble.”