1The burden of Damascus. Look, Damascus will no longer be a city. It will be a heap of ruins.
2The cities of Aroer are abandoned. They will be left for the flocks, which will lie down there, and no one will frighten them.
3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and what is left of Syria. They will be like the glory of the children of Israel, says the LORD of hosts.
4In that day the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fat of his body will grow lean.
5It will be like a harvester gathering the standing corn, reaping the ears with his arm. It will be like someone picking up the ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6Yet some grapes will be left for gleaning, as when an olive tree is shaken: two or three berries at the top of the highest bough, four or five on the outer fruitful branches, says the LORD God of Israel.
7In that day a man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel.
8He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands. He will pay no attention to what his own fingers have made, either the groves or the images.
9In that day his strong cities will be like an abandoned bough and a topmost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel. And there will be desolation.
10You have forgotten the God who saves you, and you have not remembered the rock of your strength. So you plant pleasant plants, and set out slips from a strange land.
11In the daytime you make your plant grow, and in the morning you make your seed blossom. But the harvest will be a heap of ruin in the day of grief and hopeless sorrow.
12Woe to the noise of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas, and to the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters.
13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters. But God will rebuke them, and they will flee far away. They will be chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, like whirling dust before the storm.
14Look, at evening there is terror, and before morning they are gone. This is the share of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.