Isaiah 17 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

An oracle about Damascus: Look — Damascus will stop being a city. It will become a heap of ruins.

The towns around Aroer will be abandoned — they'll become places for flocks to lie down, with no one to disturb them.

The fortified city will vanish from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus. What's left of Aram will be like the fading glory of Israel's people — this is the declaration of Yahweh, Commander of armies.

On that day, Jacob's glory will waste away and the richness of his body will grow thin.

It will be like a harvester gathering standing grain, his arm reaping the heads of wheat — like someone gleaning ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

But gleanings will be left over — like shaking an olive tree: two or three olives at the very top, four or five on the fruitful branches — this is the declaration of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

On that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will turn toward the set-apart One of Israel.

They will not look to the altars their own hands built, or turn toward what their fingers shaped — not the Asherah poles, not the incense stands.

On that day, their fortified cities will be like the abandoned places in the forests and hilltops that were deserted when the Israelites came — and it will all be desolation.

Because you forgot the God who rescues you and didn't remember the Rock who shelters you — that's why you plant beautiful gardens and set out imported vines.

On the day you plant them, you fence them in; in the morning you coax your seedlings to bloom — but the harvest will vanish on a day of sickness and incurable pain.

Oh! The thunder of many peoples — they roar like the roaring of the sea! The crashing of nations — they crash like the crashing of mighty waters!

The nations crash like the crashing of many waters — but he rebukes them and they flee far away, chased like chaff on the hills before the wind, like tumbleweeds before a storm.

At evening — sudden terror. Before morning — they are gone. This is what happens to those who plunder us, the fate of those who loot us.