1 The burden of Damascus: Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a citie, and it shalbe a ruinous heape.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall bee for flockes, which shall lye downe, and none shall make them afraid.
3 The fortresse also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdome from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall bee as the glorie of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hostes.
4 And in that day it shall come to passe, that the glory of Iacob shall bee made thinne, and the fatnesse of his flesh shall waxe leane.
5 And it shall be as when the haruest-man gathereth the corne, and reapeth the eares with his arme; and it shalbe as he that gathereth eares in the valley of Rephaim.
6 (¶ Yet gleaning-grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an Oliue tree, two or three berries in the toppe of the vppermost bough: foure or fiue in the out-most fruitfull branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel.
7 At that day shall a man looke to his Maker, and his eyes shall haue respect to the Holy one of Israel.
8 And hee shall not looke to the altars, the worke of his handes, neither shall respect that which his fingers haue made, either the groues or the images.)
9 ¶ In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an vppermost branch, which they left, because of the children of Israel: and there shalbe desolation.
10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy saluation, and hast not beene mindfull of the rocke of thy strength: therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips.
11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seede to flourish: but the haruest shall be a heape in the day of griefe, and of desperate sorrow.
12 ¶ Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise, like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing, like the rushing of mighty waters.
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee farre off, and shalbe chased as the chaffe of the mountaines before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlewind.
14 And behold at euening tide trouble, and before the morning he is not: this is the portion of them that spoile vs, and the lot of them that robbe vs.
Chap 18
1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the riuers of Ethiopia:
2 That sendeth ambassadours by the sea, euen in vessels of bulrushes vpon the waters, saying; Goe yee swift messengers to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto, a nation meted out and troden downe; whose land the riuers haue spoiled.
3 All yee inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see yee, when hee lifteth vp an ensigne on the mountaines; and when he bloweth a trumpet, heare yee.
4 For so the Lord sayd vnto me: I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a cleare heate vpon herbes, and like a cloud of dew in the heate of haruest.
5 For afore the haruest when the bud is perfect, and the sowre grape is ripening in the flowre; hee shall both cut off the sprigges with pruning hookes, and take away and cut downe the branches.
6 They shalbe left together vnto the foules of the mountaines, and to the beasts of the earth: and the foules shall summer vpon them, and all the beastes of the earth shall winter vpon them.
7 ¶ In that time shall the present be brought vnto the Lord of hostes, of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and troden vnder foote, whose land the riuers haue spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hostes, the mount Zion.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).