1 The 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 lay down, and none shall make them afraid.

3 And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus. And the remnant of Syria, they shall be as the glory of the sons of Israel, says LORD 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 grow lean.

5 And it shall be as when the harvestman gathers the standing grain, and his arm reaps the ears. Yea, it shall be as when he gleans ears in the valley of Rephaim.

6 Yet there shall be gleanings left in it, as the 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, says LORD, the God of Israel.

7 In that day men shall look to their maker, and their eyes shall have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

8 And they shall not look to the altars, the work of their hands, nor shall they have respect for that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the sun-images.

9 In that day their strong cities shall be as the forsaken places in the woodland and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the sons of Israel, and it shall be a desolation.

10 For thou have forgotten the God of thy salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of thy strength. Therefore thou plant pleasant plants, and set it with foreign slips.

11 In the day of thy planting thou hedge it in, and in the morning thou make thy seed to blossom. But the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

12 Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who 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 them. And 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 they are not. This is the portion of those who despoil us, and the lot of those who rob us.