New Living Translation NLT
Hebrew Names Version HNV
1 This message came to me concerning Damascus: “Look, the city of Damascus will disappear! It will become a heap of ruins.
1
The burden of Dammesek. Behold, Dammesek is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The towns of Aroer will be deserted. Flocks will graze in the streets and lie down undisturbed, with no one to chase them away.
2
The cities of `Aro`er are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3 The fortified towns of Israel will also be destroyed, and the royal power of Damascus will end. All that remains of Syria will share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,” declares the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
3
The fortress shall cease from Efrayim, and the kingdom from Dammesek, and the remnant of Aram; they shall be as the glory of the children of Yisra'el, says the LORD of Hosts.
4 “In that day Israel’s glory will grow dim; its robust body will waste away.
4
It shall happen in that day, that the glory of Ya`akov shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.
5 The whole land will look like a grainfield after the harvesters have gathered the grain. It will be desolate, like the fields in the valley of Rephaim after the harvest.
5
It shall be as when the harvester gathers the standing grain, and his arm reaps the ears; yes, it shall be as when one gleans ears in the valley of Refa'im.
6 Only a few of its people will be left, like stray olives left on a tree after the harvest. Only two or three remain in the highest branches, four or five scattered here and there on the limbs,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
6
Yet there shall be left therein gleanings, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches of a fruitful tree, says the LORD, the God of Yisra'el.
7 Then at last the people will look to their Creator and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
7
In that day shall men look to their Maker, and their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Yisra'el.
8 They will no longer look to their idols for help or worship what their own hands have made. They will never again bow down to their Asherah poles or worship at the pagan shrines they have built.
8
They shall not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they have respect to that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the sun-images.
9 Their largest cities will be like a deserted forest, like the land the Hivites and Amorites abandoned when the Israelites came here so long ago. It will be utterly desolate.
9
In that day shall their strong cities be as the forsaken places in the wood and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Yisra'el; and it shall be a desolation.
10 Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you. You have forgotten the Rock who can hide you. So you may plant the finest grapevines and import the most expensive seedlings.
10
For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength; therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set it with strange slips.
11 They may sprout on the day you set them out; yes, they may blossom on the very morning you plant them, but you will never pick any grapes from them. Your only harvest will be a load of grief and unrelieved pain.
11
In the day of your planting you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed to blossom; but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12 Listen! The armies of many nations roar like the roaring of the sea. Hear the thunder of the mighty forces as they rush forward like thundering waves.
12
Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!
13 But though they thunder like breakers on a beach, God will silence them, and they will run away. They will flee like chaff scattered by the wind, like a tumbleweed whirling before a storm.
13
The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but he shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
14 In the evening Israel waits in terror, but by dawn its enemies are dead. This is the just reward of those who plunder us, a fitting end for those who destroy us.
14
At evening, behold, terror; [and] before the morning they are no more. This is the portion of those who despoil us, and the lot of those who rob us.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.