Isaías 17

¹ The burden against Damascus: Behold, Damascus is removed from being a city, and it shall be a heap of ruins.

² The cities of Aroer are forsaken; now they are for flocks which lie down, and no one makes them afraid.

³ And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the rest of Syria. They shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, says Jehovah of Hosts.

⁴ And it shall come to pass in that day that the glory of Jacob shall be laid low, and the fatness of his flesh shall be made lean.

⁵ And it shall be as the gathering of grain at harvest, and his arm reaps the heads of grain. And it shall be as he who gathers heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶ Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, like the shaking of an olive tree, where two or three ripe olives are in the top of the uppermost branch, with four or five in the fruitful branches of it, says Jehovah the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day a man shall look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor respect that which his fingers have made, neither the groves nor idols.

⁹ In that day his strong cities shall be like a forsaken branch, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel; and it shall become a desolation.

¹⁰ Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of your strength, therefore you shall plant pleasant plants and shall set strange shoots.

¹¹ In the day you shall fence in your planting; and in the morning you shall make your seed sprout. But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of sickness and incurable pain.

¹² Woe to the multitude of many people, who make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations who make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

¹³ The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far away, and shall be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the tempest.

¹⁴ At evening time, behold, terror! Before the morning, he is no more! This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.