23 Concerning Damascus:

Hamat and Arpad will be ashamed, because they’ve heard bad news.

They’ll melt away—

they’ll become as troubled as an ocean that cannot stay calm.[ref]

24 Damascus will be disheartened.

It turns away to flee in panic.

Distress and pangs of pain seize it like a woman giving birth.

25 How has that widely praised city been abandoned—

the town that gave me happiness.

26 Therefore its young men will fall in its plazas,

and all the fighting men will perish on that day.

That is the declaration of Commander-in-chief Yahweh,

27 because I’ll light a fire on the wall around Damascus,

and it will burn up Ben-Hadad’s fortresses.