1. This message came to me concerning Damascus: “Look, the city of Damascus will disappear!It will become a heap of ruins.
2. The towns of Aroer will be deserted.Flocks will graze in the streets and lie down undisturbed,with no one to chase them away.
3. The fortified towns of Israel will also be destroyed,and the royal power of Damascus will end.All that remains of Syriawill share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,”declares the lord of Heaven’s Armies.
4. “In that day Israel’s glory will grow dim;its robust body will waste away.
5. The whole land will look like a grainfieldafter the harvesters have gathered the grain.It will be desolate,like the fields in the valley of Rephaim after the harvest.
6. Only a few of its people will be left,like stray olives left on a tree after the harvest.Only two or three remain in the highest branches,four or five scattered here and there on the limbs,”declares the lord, the God of Israel.
7. Then at last the people will look to their Creatorand turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
8. They will no longer look to their idols for helpor worship what their own hands have made.They will never again bow down to their Asherah polesor worship at the pagan shrines they have built.