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Isaiah 1:7
ESV Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.
NIV Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.
NASB Your land is desolate, Your cities are burned with fire; As for your fields, strangers are devouring them in front of you; It is desolation, as overthrown by strangers.
CSB Your land is desolate, your cities burned down; foreigners devour your fields right in front of you— a desolation, like a place demolished by foreigners.
NLT Your country lies in ruins, and your towns are burned. Foreigners plunder your fields before your eyes and destroy everything they see.
KJV Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
NKJV Your country is desolate, Your cities are burned with fire; Strangers devour your land in your presence; And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

What does Isaiah 1:7 mean?

The Lord has described Israel's spiritual condition (Isaiah 1:4) using the metaphor of a human body (Isaiah 1:5–6). Her sinful rebellion has made her sick from top to bottom. She walks around as everything is fine despite being wounded and bleeding.

Now God uses a different metaphor to describe Israel's physical condition. Spiritually speaking, the country is desolate, as if destroyed by foreign invaders. The cities are burned, the crops are devoured, and the battles are already lost. This is Israel's spiritual condition because of the great and ongoing sin of the people.

In the physical world, this ruin of foreign invasion had not yet come to Judah. The cities thrived, and the fields were full. The people of Israel could not see past their current circumstances to the spiritual sickness all around them and the destruction that would come from it.

The picture painted by the Lord would become physical reality: Israel was later utterly defeated by her enemies (2 Kings 23—25).
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