Isaiah 17:1-14
17 A pronouncement against Damascus:+
“Look! Damascus will cease to be a city,And it will become a heap of ruins.+
2 The cities of A·roʹer+ will be abandoned;They will become places for flocks to lie downWith no one to make them afraid.
3 Fortified cities will disappear from Eʹphra·im,+And the kingdom from Damascus;+And those remaining of SyriaWill be like the glory of the Israelites,”* declares Jehovah of armies.
4 “In that day the glory of Jacob will diminish,And his healthy body* will grow thin.
5 It will be as when the harvester is gathering the standing grainAnd his arm harvests the ears of grain,Like when one gleans grain in the Valley* of Rephʹa·im.+
6 Only gleanings will be left,As when an olive tree is beaten:
Only two or three ripe olives remain on the highest branch,Only four or five on its fruit-bearing branches,”+ declares Jehovah the God of Israel.
7 In that day man will look up to his Maker, and his eyes will gaze at the Holy One of Israel.
8 He will not look to the altars,+ the work of his hands;+ and he will not gaze at what his fingers have made, either the sacred poles* or the incense stands.
9 In that day his fortress cities will become like an abandoned site in the woodland,+Like a branch that was abandoned before the Israelites;It will become a wasteland.
10 For you have forgotten the God+ of your salvation;You have failed to remember the Rock+ of your fortress.
That is why you plant beautiful* plantationsAnd set it with the shoot of a stranger.*
11 In the day you carefully fence in your plantation,In the morning you make your seed sprout,But the harvest will vanish in the day of disease and incurable pain.+
12 Listen! There is a commotion of many peoples,Who are as boisterous as the seas!
There is an uproar of nations,Whose sound is like the roar of mighty waters!
13 The nations will make a sound like the roar of many waters.
He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,Chased like the chaff of the mountains before a wind,Like a whirling thistle* before a storm wind.
14 In the evening there is terror.
Before morning they are no more.
This is the share of those pillaging usAnd the lot of those plundering us.
Footnotes
^ Lit., “sons of Israel.”
^ Lit., “the fat of his flesh.”
^ Or “Low Plain.”
^ Or “pleasant.”
^ Or “a foreign god.”
^ Or “Like tumbleweed.”