¹This is a prophecy about Dammesek:

“Dammesek will soon stop being a city;

it will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of ‘Aro‘er will be abandoned,

given over to flocks lying down undisturbed.

³Efrayim will have no defenses,

Dammesek will cease to rule,

and Aram’s survivors will share the fate

of Isra’el’s finest sons,”

says Adonai -Tzva’ot .

⁴“When that day comes, Ya‘akov’s glory will wane,

and his full body grow thin,

⁵as when the harvester collects the standing grain,

reaping the ears of grain with his arm;

yes, as when they glean the grain

in the Refa’im Valley.

⁶Yet gleanings will be left,

as when beating an olive tree —

two or three olives at the very top,

four or five on its fruitful branches,”

says Adonai , the God of Isra’el.

⁷On that day, a person will heed his Maker

and turn his eyes toward the Holy One of Isra’el.

⁸He will pay no heed to the altars

made with his own hands,

he will not turn toward what his fingers made,

the sacred poles and standing-stones for sun-worship.

⁹When that day comes, his strong cities,

which others abandoned when Isra’el advanced,

will be like abandoned woods and forests;

they will be laid waste.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God who saved you,

failed to remember the Rock of your strength;

so you plant pagan-style gardens

and set out vine-cuttings for a foreign god.

¹¹Though you make them grow on the day you plant them,

and in the morning your seedlings flower;

the crop will vanish the day disease comes,

a day of incurable pain.

¹²Oh, the terror-stricken uproar of many peoples,

roaring like the roar of the seas,

and the rushing about of nations,

rushing and surging like wild, wild waters!

¹³Yes, the nations will roar like the mighty ocean,

but he will rebuke them, and far will they flee,

driven like chaff by a mountain wind,

like whirling dust in advance of the storm.

¹⁴As evening falls, you can see terror;

before sunrise, they have ceased to be.

This is the lot of those who plunder us,

the fate of those who prey on us.