Isaiah 17

1An oracle concerning Damascus: Look, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.

2The cities of Aroer will be deserted; they will be left to flocks, which will lie down with no one to frighten them.

3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the Israelites, declares Yahweh of Armies.

4On that day the glory of Jacob will fade, and the fat of his body will waste away.

5It will be as when a reaper gathers standing grain and harvests the ears with his arm, as when someone gleans ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten: two or three olives at the very top of the highest branch, four or five on the branches of the fruitful tree, declares Yahweh, the God of Israel.

7On that day people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel.

8They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, or regard what their fingers have made, the Asherah poles and the incense altars.

9On that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places in the woods and on the hilltops, which were abandoned before the Israelites; and there will be desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and set out cuttings from a foreign vine,

11though on the day you plant them you make them grow, and in the morning you make your seed blossom, the harvest will vanish on the day of sickness and incurable pain.

12Ah, the roar of many peoples—they roar like the roaring of the seas! The uproar of nations—they rage like the raging of mighty waters!

13The nations rage like the raging of many waters, but he rebukes them, and they flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, like whirling dust before a storm.

14At evening, sudden terror! Before morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who plunder us, the lot of those who loot us.