See, Damascus will cease to be a city
    and will become a heap of ruins.^(A)
2 Her towns will be deserted forever;^[a]
    they will be places for flocks,
    which will lie down, and no one will make them afraid.^(B)
3 The fortress will disappear from Ephraim
    and the kingdom from Damascus,
and the remnant of Aram will be
    like the glory of the people of Israel,
            says the Lord of hosts.^(C)

⁴ On that day
    the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
    and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.^(D)
5 And it shall be as when reapers gather standing grain
    and their arms harvest the ears,
and as when one gleans the ears of grain
    in the Valley of Rephaim.^(E)
6 Gleanings will be left in it,
    as when an olive tree is beaten—
two or three berries
    in the top of the highest bough,
four or five
    on the branches of a fruit tree,
            says the Lord God of Israel.^(F)

¹⁰ For you have forgotten God your Savior
    and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;
therefore, though you plant pleasant gardens
    and set out branches of a foreign god,^(J)
11 though you make them grow on the day that you plant them
    and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,
yet the harvest will flee away
    in a day of sickness and incurable pain.^(K)

¹² Woe, the thunder of many peoples,
    they thunder like the thundering of the sea!
The roar of nations,
    they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!^(L)
13 [[When the nations roar like the roaring of many waters,]]^[d]
    he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind
    and like whirling dust before the storm.^(M)
14 At evening time, sudden terror!
    Before morning, they are no more.
This is the fate of those who despoil us
    and the lot of those who plunder us.^(N)