Isaiah 17:1

¹A revelation. The LORD’s word is against the land of Hadrach, and will rest upon Damascus— for the eye of man and of all the tribes of Israel is toward the LORD—

²For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.

³The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; ⁴but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad. ⁵I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir,” says the LORD.

²Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and it will become a desolate heap, and her daughters will be burned with fire; then Israel will possess those who possessed him,” says the LORD.

⁸For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people.

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations.

²and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

¹⁵He divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

²³Of Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are confounded, for they have heard evil news. They have melted away. There is sorrow on the sea. It can’t be quiet. ²⁴Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. ²⁵How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy? ²⁶Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD of Armies. ²⁷“I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.”

⁹Isn’t Calno like Carchemish? Isn’t Hamath like Arpad? Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?”