1A message about Damascus. Look, Damascus will cease to exist as a city. Instead it will become a pile of ruins.

2The towns of Aroer will be abandoned. Flocks will live in the streets and rest there, because there won't be anyone to chase them away.

3The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, ⁶⁵Damascus will no longer be a kingdom, and those that are left of the Arameans will be like the lost glory of Israel, declares the Lord Almighty.

4At that time the glory of Jacob will fade away; he will lose his strength. ⁶⁶

5It will look as empty as fields after reapers have harvested the grain, gathering up the grain in their arms. It will be like when people pick the heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet there will be some left behind, like an olive tree that has been shaken—two or three ripe olives are left at the top of the tree, four or five on its lower branches, declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

7At that time people will pay attention to their Creator and look to the Holy One of Israel.

8They won't believe in the altars they built and the idols they made; they will not look to the Asherah poles or the altars of incense.

9At that time their fortified cities will be like places left to be taken over by bushes and trees, just as they were previously abandoned when the Israelites invaded. ⁶⁷The country will become completely desolate.

10You have forgotten the God who saves you; you have not remembered the Rock who protects you. So, even though you plant beautiful plants and grow exotic vines,

11even though you make them grow on the day that you plant them, and have them blossom in the morning that you sow them, ⁶⁸your harvest will heap of trouble on a day of grief and pain that cannot be cured.

12Disaster is coming to the many nations that growl, growling like the raging sea! Disaster is coming to the peoples who roar, roaring like thundering waters! ⁶⁹

13The nations roar like the roaring of crashing waves. But he ⁷⁰confronts them, and they run far away, blown by the wind like chaff on the mountains, like tumbleweeds driven by a storm.

14Sudden terror comes in the evening! By morning, they're gone! This is what happens to those who loot us, the fate of those who plunder us.