The Burden against Damascus
(Jeremiah 49:23–27)

1The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus being taken away from a city, and it was a falling heap of rubbish.

2The cities of Aroer were forsaken: they shall be for flocks, and they lay down, and none terrifying.

3And the fortress ceased from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Aram: they shall be as the glory of the sons of Israel, says Jehovah of armies.

4And it was in that day the glory of Jacob shall be feeble, and the fatness of his flesh shall waste away.

5And it was as he gathered the harvest of standing grain, and he shall reap the ears with his arm; and it was as he gathering ears in the valley of Rephaim.

6And he left in it gleaning, as the beating of the olive tree, two, three berries upon the head of the summit, four, five in the branches of its fruit, says Jehovah, God of Israel.

7In that day shall the man look upon him making him, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.

8And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and what his fingers made he shall not see, and the statues and the images.

9In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken thicket, and the summit which they forsook from the face of the sons of Israel: and it was a desolation.

10For thou didst forget the God of thy salvation, and didst not remember the rock of thy fortress, for this, thou shalt plant pleasant plants, and thou shalt sow it with vine shoots of the stranger.

11In the day of thy planting thou shalt hedge in, and in the morning thou shalt make thy seed fruitful: the harvest a heap in the day of thy possession and incurable pain.

12Wo to the multitude of many peoples; they will sound as the sound of the seas; and the tumult to the nations shall rage as the tumult of great waters.

13To the nations as the tumult of many waters they shall rage, and he rebuked him and he fled from far off and was pursued as the chief of the mountains before the wind and as stubble before the whirlwind.

14For the time of evening, behold, terror; before morning he is not This the portion of those plundering us, and the lot of those spoiling us.