The Bible in Basic English BBE
Good News Translation GNT
1 The word about Damascus. See, they have made Damascus a town no longer; it has become a waste place.
1
The Lord said, "Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins.
2 Her towns are unpeopled for ever; there the flocks take their rest in peace, without fear.
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 The strong tower has gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of armies.
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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 And it will be in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made small, and the strength of his body will become feeble.
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 And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the grain in the valley of Rephaim.
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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 But it will be like a man shaking an olive-tree, something will still be there, two or three berries on the top of the highest branch, four or five on the outside branches of a fertile tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel.
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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 In that day a man's heart will be turned to his Maker, and his eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
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When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel.
8 He will not be looking to the altars, the work of his hands, or to the wood pillars or to the sun-images which his fingers have made.
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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 In that day your towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to destruction.
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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 For you have not given honour to the God of your salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a strange god;
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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 In the day of your planting you were watching its growth, and in the morning your seed was flowering: but its fruit is wasted away in the day of grief and bitter sorrow.
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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 Ah! the voice of peoples, like the loud sounding of the seas, and the thundering of great nations rushing on like the bursting out of waters!
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Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves.
13 But he will put a stop to them, and make them go in flight far away, driving them like the waste of the grain on the tops of the mountains before the wind, and like the circling dust before the storm.
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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 In the evening there is fear, and in the morning they are gone. This is the fate of those who take our goods, and the reward of those who violently take our property for themselves.
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At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.