Prophecy about Damascus
The aoracle concerning bDamascus.
“Behold, Damascus is about to be cremoved from being a city
And will become a dfallen ruin.
2 “The cities of aAroer are forsaken;
They will be for bflocks to lie down in,
And there will be cno one to frighten them.
3 “The afortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
And sovereignty from Damascus
And the remnant of Aram;
They will be like the bglory of the sons of Israel,”
Declares the Lord of hosts.
4 Now in that day the aglory of Jacob will fade,
And bthe fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5 It will be aeven like the reaper gathering the standing grain,
As his arm harvests the ears,
Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain
In the bvalley of Rephaim.
6 Yet agleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree,
Two or three olives on the topmost bough,
Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree,
Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.
7 In that day man will ahave regard for his Maker
And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.
8 He will not have regard for the aaltars, the work of his hands,
Nor will he look to that which his bfingers have made,
Even the cAsherim and incense stands.
9 In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest,
Or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel;
And the land will be a desolation.
10 For ayou have forgotten the bGod of your salvation
And have not remembered the crock of your refuge.
Therefore you plant delightful plants
And set them with vine slips of a strange god.
11 In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the amorning you bring your seed to blossom;
But the harvest will bbe a heap
In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.
12 Alas, the uproar of many peoples
aWho roar like the roaring of the seas,
And the rumbling of nations
Who rush on like the brumbling of mighty waters!
13 The anations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,
But He will brebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased clike chaff in the mountains before the wind,
Or like whirling dust before a gale.
14 At evening time, behold, there is terror!
Before morning athey are no more.
Such will be the portion of those who plunder us
And the lot of those who pillage us.
Message to Ethiopia
Alas, oh land of whirring wings
Which lies beyond the rivers of aCush,
2 Which sends envoys by the sea,
Even in apapyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.
Go, swift messengers, to a nation btall and smooth,
To a people cfeared far and wide,
A powerful and oppressive nation
Whose land the rivers divide.
3 aAll you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth,
As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, byou will see it,
And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.
4 For thus the Lord has told me,
“I will look from My adwelling place quietly
Like dazzling heat in the bsunshine,
Like a cloud of cdew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For abefore the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms
And the flower becomes a ripening grape,
Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives
And remove and cut away the spreading branches.
6 They will be left together for mountain birds aof prey,
And for the beasts of the earth;
And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.
7 At that time a gift of homage will be brought to the Lord of hosts
From a apeople tall and smooth,
Even from a people feared far and wide,
A powerful and oppressive nation,
Whose land the rivers divide—
To the bplace of the name of the Lord of hosts, even Mount Zion.
Message to Egypt
The aoracle concerning bEgypt.
Behold, the Lord is criding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;
The didols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,
And the eheart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
2 “So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;
And they will aeach fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,
City against city and kingdom against kingdom.
3 “Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them;
And I will confound their strategy,
So that athey will resort to idols and ghosts of the dead
And to mediums and spiritists.
4 “Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a acruel master,
And a mighty king will rule over them,” declares the Lord God of hosts.
5 aThe waters from the sea will dry up,
And the river will be parched and dry.
6 The acanals will emit a stench,
The bstreams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;
cThe reeds and rushes will rot away.
7 The bulrushes by the aNile, by the edge of the Nile
And all the sown fields by the Nile
Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.
8 And the afishermen will lament,
And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn,
And those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.
9 Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax
And the weavers of white acloth will be utterly dejected.
10 And the apillars of Egypt will be crushed;
All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.
11 The princes of aZoan are mere fools;
The advice of Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become stupid.
How can you men say to Pharaoh,
“I am a son of the bwise, a son of ancient kings”?
12 Well then, where are your wise men?
Please let them tell you,
And let them understand what the Lord of hosts
Has apurposed against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have acted foolishly,
The princes of aMemphis are deluded;
Those who are the bcornerstone of her tribes
Have led Egypt astray.
14 The Lord has mixed within her a spirit of adistortion;
bThey have led Egypt astray in all that it does,
As a cdrunken man staggers in his vomit.
15 There will be no work for Egypt
aWhich its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.
16 In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in adread because of the bwaving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He is going to wave over them. 17 The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the apurpose of the Lord of hosts which He is purposing against them.
18 In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and aswearing allegiance to the Lord of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction.
19 In that day there will be an aaltar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a bpillar to the Lord near its border. 20 It will become a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and He will send them a aSavior and a bChampion, and He will deliver them. 21 Thus the Lord will make Himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day. They will even worship with asacrifice and offering, and will make a vow to the Lord and perform it. 22 The Lord will strike Egypt, striking but ahealing; so they will breturn to the Lord, and He will respond to them and will heal them.
23 In that day there will be a ahighway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will bworship with the Assyrians.
24 In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25 whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is aEgypt My people, and Assyria bthe work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”