Isaiah 17:3
The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.
The utterance came from Isaiah, whose name means Jehovah is salvation. He prophesied between about 760 and 698 B.C., beginning as a young man in the reign of Uzziah and continuing through Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah into the reign of Manasseh, by whom he was martyred. His work fell in crucial times in Judah typical of the great days to come. Within the book it stands in the first part, chapters 1-39, in the third general section containing the series of burdens on Babylon, Philistia, Moab and others in chapters 13-23. It belongs to a prophecy against Damascus, one of Asia's great and ancient merchant cities in Syria.
As part of Isaiah's message it shares his place as the Gospel prophet who speaks more than any other Old Testament prophet of the last days, the sufferings and work of Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of glory to come. It shows that at Christ's coming earthly governments will be overthrown and will vanish like chaff before the wind. Its margin compares the wicked to thistle-down, a fragile and perishable substance, which shows that the wicked are not preserved forever in fire.