A little time with Scripture.
SCRIPTURE READER

Isaiah 18

World English Bible · Public domain

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Isaiah 18

1Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;

2that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide!”

3All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the trumpet is blown, listen!

4For the LORD said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches.

6They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will eat them in the summer, and all the animals of the earth will eat them in the winter.

7In that time, a present will be brought to the LORD of Armies from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of the LORD of Armies, Mount Zion.

World English Bible (WEB). Public-domain translation. Publisher: eBible.org. Local WEB chapter text; additional external requests use bible-api.com.

A few questions for reading in context
  • Who is speaking, and to whom?
  • What is happening before and after this passage?
  • What kind of writing is this—poetry, narrative, letter, or another form?
  • What does the passage say before I consider how to apply it?