The Book of Isaiah
17: 1The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a
city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 17:2The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall
be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 17:3And the
fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the
remnant of Syria; they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah
of hosts. 17:4And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be
made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. 17:5And it shall be as when
the harvestman gathereth the standing grain, and his arm reapeth the ears; yea, it
shall be as when one gleaneth ears in the valley of Rephaim. 17:6Yet there shall be
left therein gleanings, 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,
saith Jehovah, the God of Israel. 17:7In that day shall men look unto their Maker,
and their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. 17:8And they shall not
look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they have respect to that
which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the sun-images. 17:9In that
day shall their strong cities be as the forsaken places in the wood and on the
mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it shall
be a desolation. 17:10For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not
been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore thou plantest pleasant plants,
and settest it with strange slips. 17:11In the day of thy planting thou hedgest it in, and
in the morning thou makest thy seed to blossom; but the harvest fleeth away in
the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. 17:12Ah, the uproar of many peoples, that
roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the
rushing of mighty waters! 17:13The 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. 17:14At eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning they are not. This is
the portion of them that despoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.