Chapter 17

Prophecy about Damascus

1 The 1aoracle concerning bDamascus.

“Behold, Damascus is about to be cremoved from being a city

And will become a dfallen ruin.

2 “The cities 1of aAroer are forsaken;

They will be for bflocks 2to lie down in,

And there will be cno one to frighten them.

3 “The 1afortified city will disappear from Ephraim,

And 2sovereignty from Damascus

And the remnant of Aram;

They will be like the bglory of the sons of Israel,”

Declares the Lord of hosts.

4 Now in that day the aglory of Jacob will 1fade,

And bthe fatness of his flesh will become lean.

5 It will be aeven like the 1reaper gathering the standing grain,

As his arm harvests the ears,

Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain

In the bvalley of Rephaim.

6 Yet agleanings will be left in it like the 1shaking of an olive tree,

Two or three olives on the topmost bough,

Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree,

Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

7 In that day man will ahave regard for his Maker

And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

8 He will not have regard for the aaltars, the work of his hands,

Nor will he look to that which his bfingers have made,

Even the 1cAsherim and 2incense stands.

9 In that day 1their strong cities will be like 2forsaken places in the forest,

Or like 3branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel;

And 4the land will be a desolation.

10 For ayou have forgotten the bGod of your salvation

And have not remembered the crock of your refuge.

Therefore you plant delightful plants

And set them with vine slips of a strange god.

11 In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,

And in the amorning you bring your seed to blossom;

But the harvest will bbe a heap

In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.

12 Alas, the uproar of many peoples

aWho roar like the roaring of the seas,

And the rumbling of nations

Who rush on like the brumbling of mighty waters!

13 The anations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,

But He will brebuke them and they will flee far away,

And be chased clike chaff in the mountains before the wind,

Or like whirling dust before a gale.

14 At evening time, behold, there is terror!

Before morning athey are no more.

1Such will be the portion of those who plunder us

And the lot of those who pillage us.