¹The burden of Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will be deprived of its existence as a city,

And it will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer will be abandoned;

They will be for flocks,

Which will lie down,

And there will be no-one to cause fear.

³Fortifications will cease to exist in Ephraim,

As will the kingdom in Damascus and the rest of Aramaea.

They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,

Says the Lord of hosts.

⁴And it will come to pass on that day

That the glory of Jacob will be brought low,

And his complexion will become leaner,

⁵And it will come to pass,

When the reaper gathers the corn,

And his arm reaps the ears of corn,

That he will be like a gleaner of ears of corn

In the Valley of the Rephaim.

⁶But there will remain gleanings in it,

And at the beating of the olive tree

There will fall two or three fruits on the topmost bough,

And four or five on its fruit-bearing branches,

Says the Lord God of Israel.

⁷On that day a man will behold his maker,

And his eyes will see the holy one of Israel.

⁸And he will not behold the altars which are the work of his hands,

And he will not look at what his fingers have made –

Neither the phallic parks

Nor the sun-images.

⁹On that day his fortified cities

Will be like the wilderness of a copse or a thicket,

Which they have abandoned because of the sons of Israel,

And they will become a desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation,

And you have not remembered the rock of your stronghold,

Which is why you will plant pleasant plants,

But you will graft foreign branches on it.

¹¹On the day you plant it,

You cause it to grow,

And on the morning you sow it,

You make it thrive,

But the harvest will be a worthless heap

On a day of sickness and grievous pain.

¹²Woe to the multitude of many nations,

Who are in a tumult like the turbulence of the seas,

And the uproar of peoples

– Like the roaring sound

When mighty waters roar.

¹³The peoples roar

Like the roaring sound when mighty waters roar,

But he will rebuke them and they will flee far away,

And they will be chased like chaff of the mountains before the wind,

And like swirling debris in a whirlwind.

¹⁴At evening time there will be terror,

And before the morning they will not be there.

This is the part of those who spoil us,

And the fate of those who plunder us.”