1. Oracle on Damascus:See, Damascus shall cease to be a cityand become a pile of ruins;
2. Her cities shall be forever abandoned,for flocks to lie in undisturbed.
3. The fortress shall vanish from Ephraimand dominion from Damascus;The remnant of Aram shall become like the gloryof the Israelites—oracle of the Lord of hosts.
4. On that dayThe glory of Jacob shall fade,and his full body shall grow thin.
5. Like the reaper’s mere armful of stalks,when he gathers the standing grain;Or as when one gleans the earsin the Valley of Rephaim.
6. Only gleanings shall be left in it,as when an olive tree has been beaten—Two or three olives at the very top,four or five on its most fruitful branches—oracle of the Lord, the God of Israel.
7. On that day people shall turn to their maker,their eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
8. They shall not turn to the altars, the work of their hands,nor shall they look to what their fingers have made:the asherahs or the incense stands.
9. On that day his strong cities shall belike those abandoned by the Hivites and AmoritesWhen faced with the Israelites;and there shall be desolation.
10. Truly, you have forgotten the God who saves you,the Rock, your refuge, you have not remembered.Therefore, though you plant plants for the Pleasant One,and set out cuttings for a foreign one,
11. Though you make them grow the day you plant themand make them blossom the morning you set them out,The harvest shall disappear on a day of sicknessand incurable pain.
12. Ah! the roaring of many peoples—a roar like the roar of the seas!The thundering of nations—thunder like the thundering of mighty waters!
13. But God shall rebuke them,and they shall flee far away,Driven like chaff on the mountains before a wind,like tumbleweed before a storm.
14. At evening, there is terror,but before morning, they are gone!Such is the portion of those who despoil us,the lot of those who plunder us.