Isaiah

¹ "Watch this: Damascus undone as a city, a pile of dust and rubble!

² The sheep and goats will move in And take over the towns as if they owned them—which they will!

³ not a trace of government left in Damascus. What's left of Aram? The same as what's left of Israel—not much." Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

⁴ and his well-fed body turns skinny.

⁵ as a field harvested by field hands. She'll be like a few stalks of barley left standing in the lush Valley of Rephaim after harvest,

⁶ in the top of the olive tree, Or the four or five apples that the pickers couldn't reach in the orchard." Decree of the God of Israel.

⁷ Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel.

⁸ They'll lose interest in all the stuff they've made—altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, handmade religion—however impressive it is.

⁹ And yes, the Day is coming when their fortress cities will be abandoned—the very same cities that the Hivites and Amorites abandoned when Israel invaded! And the country will be empty, desolate.

¹⁰ not remembered your Rock-of-Refuge. And so, even though you are very religious, planting all sorts of bushes and herbs and trees to honor and influence your fertility gods,

¹¹ bursting with buds and sprouts and blossoms, Nothing will come of them. Instead of a harvest you'll get nothing but grief and pain, pain, pain.

¹² Thunder like the crashing of ocean waves! Nations roaring, roaring, like the roar of a massive waterfall,

¹³ But God will silence them with a word, And then he'll blow them away like dead leaves off a tree, like down from a thistle.

¹⁴ By morning it's gone—not a sign of it anywhere! This is what happens to those who would ruin us, this is the fate of those out to get us.