17 The ^[a]burden of Damascus.

Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. ² The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. ³ And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom ^[b]from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria; they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts.

⁴ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. ⁵ And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the standing grain, and his arm reapeth the ears; yea, it shall be as when one gleaneth ears in the valley of Rephaim. ⁶ Yet there shall be left therein gleanings, as the ^[c]shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches of a fruitful tree, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel. ⁷ In that day shall men look unto their Maker, and their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. ⁸ And they shall not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they have respect to that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the sun-images. ⁹ In that day shall their strong cities be as the forsaken places in the wood and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it shall be a desolation. ¹⁰ For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy ^[d]strength; therefore thou plantest pleasant plants, and settest it with ^[e]strange slips. ¹¹ In the day of thy planting thou hedgest it in, and in the morning thou makest thy seed to blossom; but the harvest ^[f]fleeth away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

¹² Ah, the ^[g]uproar of many peoples, that roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters! ¹³ The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but he shall rebuke ^[h]them, and ^[i]they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm. ¹⁴ At eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning ^[j]they are not. This is the portion of them that despoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

18 Ah, the land ^[k]of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of ^[l]Ethiopia; ² that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, ^[m]even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation ^[n]tall and smooth, to a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation ^[o]that meteth out and treadeth down, whose land the rivers ^[p]divide! ³ All ye inhabitants of the world, and ye dwellers on the earth, when an ensign is lifted up on the mountains, see ye; and when the trumpet is blown, hear ye.

⁴ For thus hath Jehovah said unto me, I will be still, and I will behold in my dwelling-place, ^[q]like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. ⁵ For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becometh a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and the spreading branches will he take away and cut down. ⁶ They shall be left together unto the ravenous birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. ⁷ In that time shall a present be brought unto Jehovah of hosts from a people ^[r]tall and smooth, even from a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation that meteth out and treadeth down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the mount Zion.