A prophecy against Damascus

17 A prophecy against Damascus:

‘See, Damascus will no longer be a city
    but will become a heap of ruins.
² The cities of Aroer will be deserted
    and left to flocks, which will lie down,
    with no one to make them afraid.
³ The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
    and royal power from Damascus;
the remnant of Aram will be
    like the glory of the Israelites,’
declares the Lord Almighty.

⁴ ‘In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
    the fat of his body will waste away.
⁵ It will be as when reapers harvest the standing corn,
    gathering the corn in their arms –
as when someone gleans ears of corn
    in the Valley of Rephaim.
⁶ Yet some gleanings will remain,
    as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
    four or five on the fruitful boughs,’
declares the Lord,
the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day people will look to their Maker
    and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
⁸ They will not look to the altars,
    the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles
    and the incense altars their fingers have made.

⁹ In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

¹⁰ You have forgotten God your Saviour;
    you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants
    and plant imported vines,
¹¹ though on the day you set them out, you make them grow,
    and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud,
yet the harvest will be as nothing
    in the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹² Woe to the many nations that rage –
    they rage like the raging sea!
Woe to the peoples who roar –
    they roar like the roaring of great waters!
¹³ Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters,
    when he rebukes them they flee far away,
driven before the wind like chaff on the hills,
    like tumble-weed before a gale.
¹⁴ In the evening, sudden terror!
    Before the morning, they are gone!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
    the lot of those who plunder us.

A prophecy against Cush

18 Woe to the land of whirring wings
    along the rivers of Cush,
² which sends envoys by sea
    in papyrus boats over the water.

Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
    to a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
    whose land is divided by rivers.

³ All you people of the world,
    you who live on the earth,
when a banner is raised on the mountains,
    you will see it,
and when a trumpet sounds,
    you will hear it.
⁴ This is what the Lord says to me:
    ‘I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling-place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.’
⁵ For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone
    and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives,
    and cut down and take away the spreading branches.
⁶ They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey
    and to the wild animals;
the birds will feed on them all summer,
    the wild animals all winter.

⁷ At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty

from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
    from a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
    whose land is divided by rivers –

the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the Lord Almighty.