A Word Over Damascus
17 1 An oracle concerning Damascus. Look — Damascus will no longer be a city; it will become a heap of ruins. 2 The cities of Aroer are abandoned; they will be left for the flocks, which will lie down with no one to frighten them.
3 The fortress will vanish from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the Father of heaven's armies.
4 In that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his body will waste away. 5 It will be as when a harvester gathers the standing grain and harvests the heads of grain with his arm; it will be as when someone gleans the grain in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet a few will be left, as when an olive tree is beaten: two or three ripe olives at the very top, four or five on the fruitful branches, declares the Father of Israel. a a v6 Olive farmers harvested by beating branches with long poles to knock the fruit down; a few olives at the very top always stayed out of reach.
7 In that day people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel — our Father. b b v7 The Holy One of Israel is Isaiah's signature name for our Father — naming him as the holy God who has bound himself to a people who often forget him. 8 They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will not gaze at what their own fingers have made — the Asherah poles and the incense altars. 9 In that day their strong cities will be like the abandoned places of the woods and hilltops, which were deserted when the children of Israel came; and it will be a desolation. c c v9 Refers to the Canaanite settlements abandoned when Israel first took possession of the land. 10 For you have forgotten the Father of your salvation, and you have not remembered the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you plant pleasant gardens and set out cuttings from a foreign vine, 11 and though on the day you plant them they begin to sprout, and by morning your planting is in blossom, yet the harvest will vanish in a day of grief and incurable pain. 12 Ah, the uproar of many peoples — they roar like the roaring of the seas! The rumbling of nations — they rumble like the rumbling of mighty waters! 13 The nations rumble like the rumbling of many waters, but our Father will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like whirling dust before the storm. 14 At evening, sudden terror! Before morning, they are gone. This is the portion of those who plunder us, the lot of those who loot us.