CHAPTER 17
1A portent concerning Damascus.
Damascus is to be no more a city
but shall become a heap of ruins.
2The towns of Aroer are abandoned,
become a place for flocks
that bed down there with none troubling them.
3There is an end to the forts in Ephraim
and of kingship in Damascus.
And the remnant of Aram
shall be like what Israel’s glory has become,
says the LORD of Armies.
4And it shall happen on that day,
Jacob’s glory shall turn gaunt
and the fat of his flesh become lean.
5And as he was like one who gathers standing grain,
by armfuls gleaning,
he shall be like one gathering ears of grain
6only gleanings left him, as when an olive tree is beaten,
two or three berries at the top of the bough,
four or five on the branches of the fruit-tree—
says the LORD God of Israel.
7On that day man shall turn to his Maker and his eyes shall look to Israel’s Holy One. 8And he shall not turn to the altars, his handiwork that his fingers made, and he shall not look to the cultic poles and the incense altars. 9On that day his stronghold towns shall be like the abandoned sites of Horesh and Amir that were abandoned because of the Israelites, and it shall become a desolation.
10For you have forgotten the God of your deliverance,
and you have not recalled the Rock, your stronghold.
Therefore did you plant your saplings for vegetal gods,
sow the slip of an alien god.
11The day you plant it, it will flourish,
in the morn your sowing will blossom,
but the roots become a heap on the ill-starred day,
and grievous pain.
12Woe, crowd of many peoples,
like the roar of the seas they roar.
and the clamor of nations
like the clamor of mighty waters they clamor.
13Nations like the clamor of many waters they clamor,
but He rebukes them and they flee far away,
driven like chaff in the hills before wind
and like tumbleweed in the whirlwind.
14At eventide, look—terror!
Before morning it is no more.
This is the lot of our despoilers
and the fate of our plunderers.