1The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, for it shall be a ruinous heap.
2The cities of Aroer shall be forsaken: they shall be for the flocks: for they shall lie there, and none shall make them afraid.
3The munition also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Aram shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
4And in that day the glory of Jacob shall be made clean.
5And it shall be as when the harvest man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm, and he shall be as he that gathereth the ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6Yet a gathering of grapes shall be left in it: as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries are in the top of the upmost boughs, and four or five in the high branches of the fruit thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel.
7At that day shall a man look to his maker, and his eyes shall look to the holy one of Israel.
8And he shall not look to the altars, the works of his own hands, neither shall he look to those things which his own fingers have made, as groves and images.
9In that day shall the cities of their strength be as the forsaking of boughs and branches, which they did forsake, because of the children of Israel, and there shall be desolation.
10Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not remembered the God of thy strength, therefore shalt thou set pleasant plants, and shalt graft strange vine branches.
11In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be gone in the day of possession, and there shall be desperate sorrow.
12Ah, the multitude of many people, they shall make a sound like the noise of the sea: for the noise of the people shall make a sound like the noise of mighty waters.
13The people shall make a sound like the noise of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and as a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14And lo, in the evening there is trouble: but afore the morning it is gone. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.