¹The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. ²The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks; and they shall lie down and there shall be none to make them afraid. ³The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts. ⁴And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall become lean. ⁵And it shall be as when the reaper gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; yea, it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.

⁶And a gleaning shall be left in it, as at the shaking of an olive-tree: two, three berries above, in the tree-top; four, five in its fruitful boughs, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel. ⁷In that day shall man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have regard to the Holy One of Israel. ⁸And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor have regard to what his fingers have made, neither the Asherahs nor the sun-images.

⁹In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken tract in the woodland, and the mountain-top which they forsook before the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation. ¹⁰For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plantations, and shalt set them with foreign slips: ¹¹in the day of thy planting wilt thou make them to grow, and on the morrow wilt thou make thy seed to flourish; but the harvest will flee in the day of taking possession, and the sorrow will be incurable.

¹²Ha! a tumult of many peoples! they make a noise as the noise of the seas; —and the rushing of nations! they rush as the rushing of mighty waters. ¹³The nations rush as the rushing of many waters; but he will rebuke them, and they shall flee far away, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a whirling of dust before the whirlwind: ¹⁴behold, at eventide, trouble; before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

Chapter 18

¹Ha! land shadowing with wings, which art beyond the rivers of Cush, ²that sendest ambassadors over the sea, and in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, saying, Go, swift messengers, to a nation scattered and ravaged, to a people terrible from their existence and thenceforth; to a nation of continued waiting and of treading down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! ³All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, see ye, and when a trumpet is blown, hear ye! ⁴For thus hath Jehovah said unto me: I will take my rest, and I will observe from my dwelling-place like clear heat upon herbs, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. ⁵For before the harvest, when the blossoming is over, and the flower becometh a ripening grape, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-knives, and take away and cut down the branches. ⁶They shall be left together unto the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the earth; and the birds of prey shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. ⁷In that time shall a present be brought unto Jehovah of hosts of a people scattered and ravaged, —and from a people terrible from their existence and thenceforth, a nation of continued waiting and of treading down, whose land the rivers have spoiled, …to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the mount Zion.

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