Isaiah 17

¹ Proclamation about Damascus: Damascus wil soon cease to be a city, it wil become a heap of ruins.

² Its towns, abandoned for ever, wil be pastures for flocks; there they wil rest with no one to disturbthem.

³ Ephraim wil be stripped of its defences and Damascus of its sovereignty; and the remnant of Aram wilbe treated like the glory of the Israelites -- declares Yahweh Sabaoth.

⁴ When that day comes, Jacob's glory wil diminish, from being fat he wil grow lean;

⁵ as when a reaper gathers in the standing corn, harvesting the ears of corn with his arm, or when theyglean the ears in the Val ey of Rephaim,

⁶ nothing wil remain but pickings, as when an olive tree is beaten; two or three berries left on thetopmost bough, four or five berries on the branches of the tree -- declares Yahweh, God of Israel.

⁷ That day, a man wil look to his Creator and his eyes wil turn to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ He will no longer look to altars, his own handiwork, or to what his own fingers have made: the sacredpoles and incense-altars.

⁹ That day, its cities of refuge wil be abandoned as were the woods and heaths at the Israelites'advance: there wil be desolation.

¹⁰ Since you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and failed to keep the Rock, your refuge, in mind,you plant pleasure-gardens, you sow exotic seeds;

¹¹ the day you plant them, you get them to sprout, and, next morning, your seedlings are in flower; butthe harvest wil vanish on the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹² Disaster! The thunder of vast hordes, a thunder like the thunder of the seas, the roar of nationsroaring like the roar of mighty floods,

¹³ of nations roaring like the roar of ocean! He rebukes them and far away they flee, driven like chaff onthe mountains before the wind, like an eddy of dust before the storm.

¹⁴ At evening al is terror, by morning al have disappeared. Such wil be the lot of those who plunder us,such, the fate of our despoilers.