An Oracle Concerning Damascus

¹An oracle concerning Damascus.

Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city

and will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer are deserted;

they will be for flocks,

which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.

³The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,

and the kingdom from Damascus;

and the remnant of Syria will be

like the glory of the children of Israel,

declares the Lord of hosts.

⁴And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low,

and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.

⁵And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain

and his arm harvests the ears,

and as when one gleans the ears of grain

in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Gleanings will be left in it,

as when an olive tree is beaten—

two or three berries

in the top of the highest bough,

four or five

on the branches of a fruit tree,

declares the Lord God of Israel.

⁷In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. ⁸He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

⁹In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation

and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;

therefore, though you plant pleasant plants

and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,

¹¹though you make them grow1 on the day that you plant them,

and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,

yet the harvest will flee away2

in a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹²Ah, the thunder of many peoples;

they thunder like the thundering of the sea!

Ah, the roar of nations;

they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

¹³The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,

but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,

chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind

and whirling dust before the storm.

¹⁴At evening time, behold, terror!

Before morning, they are no more!

This is the portion of those who loot us,

and the lot of those who plunder us.