Isaiah 17

1An oracle concerning Damascus: Behold, Damascus will be removed from being a city, and it will become a heap of ruins.

2The cities of Aroer are abandoned; they will be for flocks, and they will lie down with no one to make them afraid.

3And the fortress will cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the sons of Israel, declares Yahweh of hosts.

4And in that day the glory of Jacob will become thin, and the fatness of his flesh will waste away.

5And it will be as when one gathers standing grain at harvest, and his arm reaps the ears; and it will be as when one gleans ears in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten: two or three berries at the top of the highest bough, four or five on its fruitful branches, declares Yahweh, the God of Israel.

7In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

8And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not regard what his fingers have made—the Asherim and the incense altars.

9In that day his fortified cities will be like the deserted places of the forest and the treetop, which they abandoned before the sons of Israel; and it will become a desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; therefore you plant pleasant plants and sow it with a foreign vine.

11On the day you plant, you make it grow luxuriantly; and in the morning you make your seed sprout. But the harvest flees away in a day of grief and incurable pain.

12Ah, the roar of many peoples— they roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations— they rush like the rushing of mighty waters.

13The peoples roar like the roaring of many waters, but he rebukes it, and it flees far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, and like whirling dust before the storm.

14At evening time, look—terror! Before morning, he is no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who loot us.