The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 17 Prophecy Against Damascus and Ephraim

 The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 17

Prophecy Against Damascus and Ephraim

1 The Burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus will be taken away; it will no longer be a city, but a heap of ruins.

2 The cities of Aroer will be desolate; they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

3 The stronghold of Ephraim will cease, the kingdom of Damascus and the remnant of Syria; they will be like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of hosts.

4 In that day the glory of Jacob will be diminished, and the fatness of his flesh will disappear.

5 For he will be like a reaper who gathers the wheat and reaps the ears with his arm; he will be like one who gleans the ears in the Valley of Rephaim. 

6 But there will still be some gleanings in it, like the shaking of an olive tree: two or three olives on the topmost branch, and four or five branches on the outermost branch of a fruitful tree, declares the Lord God of Israel.

7 In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will have respect to the Holy One of Israel.

8 He will not regard the altars, the work of his hands, nor will he look to what his fingers have made, nor to the Asherah poles, nor to the images of the sun.

9 In that day his fortified cities will be like the forsaken places in the forest or on the top of the mountains, which were abandoned before the children of Israel; and they will be desolate.

10 Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength, you will plant beautiful plants and surround them with strange branches. 

11 In the day that you plant them you shall hedge them in, and in the morning you shall make your seed spring up: but the harvest shall fly away in the day of trouble and of incurable pain.