Here is a message about Damascus: “Look, Damascus is no longer a city, it is a heap of ruins!

“I will make you desolate and an object of scorn among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by.

I will turn Mount Seir into a desolate ruin; ¹  I will cut off ²  from it the one who passes through or returns.

Ephraim will be ruined in the day of judgment! ¹  What I am declaring ²  to the tribes of Israel will certainly take place! ³ 

¹ Certainly you must have heard! ²  Long ago I worked it out, In ancient times I planned ³  it; and now I am bringing it to pass. The plan is this: Fortified cities will crash into heaps of ruins. ⁴ 

“I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled ¹  on it, and his house is to be reduced ²  to a rubbish heap ³  for this indiscretion. ⁴ 

Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! ¹  The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, ²  demolished ³  its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins. ⁴ 

¹ Certainly you must have heard! ²  Long ago I worked it out, in ancient times I planned ³  it, and now I am bringing it to pass. The plan is this: Fortified cities will crash into heaps of ruins. ⁴ 

They will steal your wealth and loot your merchandise. They will tear down your walls and destroy your luxurious ¹  homes. Your stones, your trees, and your soil he will throw ²  into the water. ³ 

The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He crushed them up ¹  and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley.

and in the presence of his colleagues ¹  and the army of Samaria ²  he said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they be left to themselves? ³  Will they again offer sacrifice? Will they finish this in a day? Can they bring these burnt stones to life again from piles of dust?”

I will lay your cities waste ¹  and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas.

They said to me, “The remnant that remains from the exile there in the province are experiencing considerable ¹  adversity and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem lies breached, and its gates have been burned down!” ² 

when what you dread ¹  comes like a whirlwind, ²  and disaster strikes you ³  like a devastating storm, ⁴  when distressing trouble ⁵  comes on you.

Your land is devastated, your cities burned with fire. Right before your eyes your crops are being destroyed by foreign invaders. ¹  They leave behind devastation and destruction. ² 

For Syria’s leader is Damascus, and the leader of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. ¹ 

I will make justice the measuring line, fairness the plumb line; hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, ¹  the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place.

They will rebuild the perpetual ruins and restore the places that were desolate; ¹  they will reestablish the ruined cities, the places that have been desolate since ancient times.

The Lord said, ¹  “I will make Jerusalem ²  a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. ³  I will destroy the towns of Judah so that no one will be able to live in them.”

Listen! News is coming even now. ¹  The rumble of a great army is heard approaching ²  from a land in the north. ³  It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live.