[1] The LORD said, "Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins. [2] The cities of Syria will be deserted forever. They will be a pasture for sheep and cattle, and no one will drive them away. [3] Israel will be defenseless, and Damascus will lose its independence. Those Syrians who survive will be in disgrace like the people of Israel. I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken." [4] The LORD said, "A day is coming when Israel's greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty. [5] Israel will be like a field where the grain has been cut and harvested, as desolate as a field in Rephaim Valley when it has been picked bare. [6] Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the LORD God of Israel, have spoken." [7] When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel. [8] They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork-symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense. [9] When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel. [10] Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens in order to worship a foreign god. [11] But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain. [12] Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves. [13] The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a mountainside, like straw in a whirlwind. [14] At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.
