Isaiah, 17

¹ A pronouncement against Damascus: “Look! Damascus will cease to be a city, And it will become a heap of ruins.

² The cities of A·roʹer will be abandoned; They will become places for flocks to lie down With no one to make them afraid.

³ Fortified cities will disappear from Eʹphra·im, And the kingdom from Damascus; And those remaining of Syria Will be like the glory of the Israelites,”^*1 declares Jehovah of armies.

⁴ “In that day the glory of Jacob will diminish, And his healthy body^*1 will grow thin.

⁵ It will be as when the harvester is gathering the standing grain And his arm harvests the ears of grain, Like when one gleans grain in the Valley^*1 of Rephʹa·im.

⁶ Only gleanings will be left, As when an olive tree is beaten: Only two or three ripe olives remain on the highest branch, Only four or five on its fruit-bearing branches,” declares Jehovah the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day man will look up to his Maker, and his eyes will gaze at the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands; and he will not gaze at what his fingers have made, either the sacred poles^*1 or the incense stands.

⁹ In that day his fortress cities will become like an abandoned site in the woodland, Like a branch that was abandoned before the Israelites; It will become a wasteland.

¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation; You have failed to remember the Rock of your fortress. That is why you plant beautiful^*1 plantations And set it with the shoot of a stranger.^*2

¹¹ In the day you carefully fence in your plantation, In the morning you make your seed sprout, But the harvest will vanish in the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹² Listen! There is a commotion of many peoples, Who are as boisterous as the seas! There is an uproar of nations, Whose sound is like the roar of mighty waters!

¹³ The nations will make a sound like the roar of many waters. He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, Chased like the chaff of the mountains before a wind, Like a whirling thistle^*1 before a storm wind.

¹⁴ In the evening there is terror. Before morning they are no more. This is the share of those pillaging us And the lot of those plundering us.