[1] The word about Damascus. See, they have made Damascus a town no longer;
it has become a waste place. [2] Her towns are unpeopled for ever; there
the flocks take their rest in peace, without fear. [3] The strong tower has
gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will
come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel,
says the Lord of armies. [4] And it will be in that day that the glory of
Jacob will be made small, and the strength of his body will become feeble.
[5] And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling
together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the
grain in the valley of Rephaim. [6] But it will be like a man shaking an
olive-tree, something will still be there, two or three berries on the top
of the highest branch, four or five on the outside branches of a fertile
tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel. [7] In that day a man's heart will
be turned to his Maker, and his eyes to the Holy One of Israel. [8] He will
not be looking to the altars, the work of his hands, or to the wood pillars
or to the sun-images which his fingers have made. [9] In that day your
towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which
the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to
destruction. [10] For you have not given honour to the God of your
salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this
cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a
strange god; [11] In the day of your planting you were watching its growth,
and in the morning your seed was flowering: but its fruit is wasted away in
the day of grief and bitter sorrow. [12] Ah! the voice of peoples, like the
loud sounding of the seas, and the thundering of great nations rushing on
like the bursting out of waters! [13] But he will put a stop to them, and
make them go in flight far away, driving them like the waste of the grain
on the tops of the mountains before the wind, and like the circling dust
before the storm. [14] In the evening there is fear, and in the morning
they are gone. This is the fate of those who take our goods, and the reward
of those who violently take our property for themselves.
