This is the heavy burden upon Damascus: Behold, Damascus shall be no more a city, but a heap of broken stones.

So shalt thou, O Damascus, be desolate: because thou hast forgotten God thy Saviour, and hast not called to remembrance the rock of thy strength. Wherefore thou hast also set a fair plant, and grafted a strange branch.

And he shall be as one that gathereth up corn in the harvest, which cutteth his handful with the sickle, and when one gathereth the sheaves together in the valley, of Rephaim.

Ephraim shall no more be strong, and Damascus shall no more be a kingdom. And as for the glory of the remnant of the Syrians, it shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.

And shall not turn to the altars that are the work of his own hands, neither shall he look upon groves and images, which his fingers have wrought.

The cities of Aroer shall be waste: the cattle shall lie there, and no man shall fraye them away.

Even like many waters shall the people rage: God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and vanish away like the dust with the wind upon a hill, and as the whirlwind through a storm.

Woe be to the multitude of much people, which shall make a sound like the noise of the sea; and the violence of the nations which shall rage like the rushing in of many waters.

Then shall man convert again unto his maker, and turn his eyes to the holy one of Israel.

Some gathering indeed shall there be left in it, even as in the shaking of an olive tree, there remain two of three berries in the upper bough, and four or five in the branches. Thus the LORD God of Israel hath spoken.

At even, behold, there is trouble: yet in the morning it is gone with them. This is the portion of them that oppress us, and the heritage of them that rob us.

In the day when thou didst plant it, it was great, and gave soon the fruit of thy seed: But in the day of harvest, thou shalt reap a heap of sorrows and miseries.

At the same time shall their strong cities be desolate, like as were once the forsaken plows and corn, which they forsook, for fear of the children of Israel.

At that time also shall the glory of Jacob be very poor, and his fatness lean.