Good News Translation w/ Apocrypha GNTA
New International Version NIV
1 The Lord said, "Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins.
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A prophecy against Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.
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.
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The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid.
3 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."
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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 The Lord said, "A day is coming when Israel's greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty.
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“In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away.
5 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.
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It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain, gathering the grain in their arms— as when someone gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 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."
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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 When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel.
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In that day people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
8 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.
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They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah polesand the incense altars their fingers have made.
9 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.
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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 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.
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You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines,
11 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.
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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 Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves.
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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 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.
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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 tumbleweed before a gale.
14 At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.
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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.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.