Concerning Damascus: Hamath and Arpad have been humiliated, for they have heard bad news. They are faint-hearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quieted.
Then even the valiant one, whose heart is like that of a lion, will completely despair, for all of Israel knows that your father is a warrior, and those who are with him are brave.
Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and put them in the cities of Samaria instead of the Israelites. They possessed Samaria and lived in its cities.
Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.
Then Asa removed silver and gold from the storehouses of the house of the Lord and palace of the king, and he sent it to Ben-hadad king of Aram in Syria, who lived in Damascus, saying,
In that day the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, who shall be left, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. And when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he passed sentence on him.
Damascus was your merchant in the multitude of your wares, because of the multitude of all kinds of riches, because of the wine of Helbon and white wool.
Cross over to Kalneh and see, and go from there to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines— are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory?
and requested letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any there of the Way, either men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
The officers are to speak further to the people, and they shall say, “What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brother’s heart faint as well as his heart.”
Our hearts melted when we heard these things, and no man had any breath in him because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below.