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Isaiah 17
Oracle on Damascus
1 Oracle against Damascus: Damascus is going to cease to be a city, she will become a heap of ruins.
2 Her towns, abandoned for ever, will be pastures for flocks. There they will rest with no one to frighten them away.
3 Ephraim[*a] will lose his defences and Damascus her sovereignty; the remnant of Aram will be treated in the same way as the glory of the Israelites. It is Yahweh Sabaoth who speaks.
4 That day, the glory of Jacob will be diminished, from being fat he will grow lean;
5 as when a reaper hugs an armful of standing corn and slices off the ears, or when they glean the ears in the Valley of Rephaim:
6 nothing remains but gleanings; or when an olive tree is beaten: two or three berries left on the topmost bough, four or five on the branches of the tree. It is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who speaks.
An end to idolatry
7 That day, man will look to his creator and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel.
8 He will no longer look after the altars, his own handiwork, nor gaze at what his hands have made: the sacred poles and the solar pillars.
Against the gardens of Adonis
9 That day, your cities will be abandoned as were those of the Amorites and the Hivites in the path of the children of Israel. They will be a desert
10 because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and failed to keep in remembrance the Rock of your strength. For you are planting plants for Adonis, you put in sprigs of foreign gods,
11 you make them flower the same day as you plant them, as soon as it is light your seedlings blossom, but all that you pick will vanish on the day of trouble, and the evil will be incurable.
The upsurge of the nations
12 Vast hordes thundering, with thunder like thundering seas, the roaring of nations roaring like the roar of mighty waters.
13 (Nations roaring like the roar of many waters.) He rebukes them and far away they flee, driven off like chaff on the mountains before the wind, like an eddy of dust before the storm.
14 At evening all was terror; before morning comes they are no more. Such was the lot of our plunderers, such, the fate of our despoilers.