1An oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus is removed from the city, and it will become a heap of ruin.2The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will belong to flocks, and they will lie down, and there will be nothing causing trembling.3Fortification will cease from Ephraim and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the sons of Israel, declares the LORD of Hosts.4It will happen on that day that the glory of Jacob will languish, and the fatness of his flesh will starve.5It will be like one gathering the harvest of standing grain when his arm reaps the ears, and it will be like one gathering ears in the Valley of Rephaim.6A gleaning will remain in it like the shaking of an olive tree—two or three berries in the head of the top, four or five in its clefts of fruitfulness—declares the LORD, the God of Israel.7On that day a man will gaze upon his Maker, and his eyes will look toward the Holy One of Israel.8He will not gaze upon the altars, the work of his hands, nor see what his fingers have made, neither the Asherah nor the pillars.9On that day his cities of security will be like the forsaken places in the Horesh and the top which were forsaken before the sons of Israel, and it will become a devastation.10Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your security, therefore you plant plantations of pleasantness and sow a branch of a stranger in it.11On the day of your plantation you will grow, and in the morning your seed will sprout—a heap of harvest on a day of weakness and incurable pain.12Woe to the crowd of many peoples! Like the roaring of seas they roar, and the roar of peoples like the roar of mighty waters they crash.13Peoples like the roar of many waters they crash, yet he rebukes them and they flee far away; they are pursued like chaff of the mountains before the wind and like a wheel before the whirlwind.14At the time of evening, behold, terror; before morning it is nothing. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the allotted share belongs to those who plunder us.