Isaiah 17

1The oracle concerning Damascus. Look, Damascus is soon to be a city no more; it will become a heap of fallen stones. 2Aroer’s towns stand empty and are given over to flocks; the sheep will rest there, and nobody will drive them off. 3The stronghold will vanish from Ephraim and royal rule from Damascus; Aram’s survivors will end up like the glory of the Israelites, declares the LORD of Armies.

4On that day Jacob’s glory will dwindle, and his sleek body will grow thin. 5It will be like a reaper sweeping up the standing grain, his arm cutting the heads of grain, or like someone picking up stray heads in the Valley of Rephaim. 6Some gleanings will remain in it, like olives left after a tree is beaten: two or three up in the crown, four or five out on the branches that bore the crop, declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

7On that day people will lift their gaze to their Maker, and their eyes will be on the Holy One of Israel. 8They will no longer look to the altars their own hands built, or pay attention to what their fingers made, the Asherah poles and the incense altars. 9On that day their strongholds will be like the deserted sites in the woods and on the hilltops that the old inhabitants left behind before the Israelites; the whole land will be a waste. 10You have forgotten the God of your salvation; the Rock who shelters you has slipped from your mind. So you lay out lovely gardens and plant them with cuttings from a foreign vine. 11On the day you plant, you make it grow; by morning you make your seed burst into bloom; but the harvest slips away on a day of sickness and pain past all cure.

12Woe to the din of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas, and to the clamor of nations, who crash like mighty waters crashing! 13The nations thunder like vast waters crashing, yet at his rebuke they scatter into the distance, blown away like husks from the hilltops in the wind, like a swirl of dust in a storm. 14When evening comes, there is sudden dread; by daybreak they have vanished. Such is the share of those who loot us, the fate allotted to those who strip us bare.