Isaiah 17

An Oracle Against Damascus

1An oracle concerning Damascus:
Look, Damascus will cease to be a city;
it will become a heap of ruins. 2Aroer’s towns will be abandoned,
left for flocks to lie down in,
with no one to frighten them. 3Fortresses will disappear from Ephraim,
royal power from Damascus.
Aram’s remnant will be like Israel’s glory,
declares the LORD of hosts. 4On that day Jacob’s glory will grow thin,
and his well-fed body waste away.

5It will be like a reaper gathering standing grain,
his arm cutting the ears,
like someone gleaning ears of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim. 6Only gleanings will remain,
as when an olive tree is beaten:
two or three olives at the topmost branch,
four or five on its fruitful boughs,
declares the LORD, Israel’s God. 7On that day people will look to their Maker;
their eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel. 8They will not look to the altars their hands made
or regard what their fingers fashioned—
the Asherah poles and incense stands.

9On that day their strong cities will be like abandoned woodland and hilltops, deserted before the Israelites. There will be desolation. 10You have forgotten the God of your salvation
and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge.
So you plant delightful gardens
and set them with foreign vine shoots. 11You make them flourish the day you plant,
and bloom the morning you sow.
But the harvest flees
on a day of sickness and incurable pain. 12Ah, the uproar of many peoples,
roaring like the seas!
The crash of nations,
crashing like mighty waters!

13Nations crash like surging waters,
but he rebukes them and they flee far away,
driven like mountain chaff before the wind,
like tumbleweed before a storm. 14At evening—terror!
Before morning—they are gone.
This is the portion of those who plunder us,
the lot of those who rob us.