Ezekiel 29–31

Chapter 29

¹In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, ²Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against the whole of Egypt; ³speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which saith, My river is mine own, and I made it for myself. ⁴And I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales; ⁵and I will cast thee into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open field; thou shalt not be brought together nor gathered: I will give thee for meat to the beasts of the earth and to the fowl of the heavens. ⁶And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. ⁷When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst give way and rend all their shoulder; and when they leaned upon thee, thou didst break, and didst make all their loins to tremble.

⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast from thee. ⁹And the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste: and they shall know that I am Jehovah, because he saith, The river is mine, and I made it. ¹⁰Therefore behold, I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt deserts of wasteness and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, even unto the border of Ethiopia. ¹¹No foot of man shall pass through it, nor shall foot of beast pass through it, nor shall it be inhabited, forty years. ¹²And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the countries that are desolated, and her cities shall be, in the midst of the cities that are laid waste, a desolation forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries. ¹³Yet thus saith the Lord Jehovah: At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the peoples whither they were scattered; ¹⁴and I will turn again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return to the land of Pathros, into the land of their birth, and they shall there be a base kingdom. ¹⁵It shall be the basest of kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations; and I will diminish them, so that they shall no more rule over the nations. ¹⁶And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to remembrance, when they turn after them: and they shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah.

¹⁷And it came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first of the month, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, ¹⁸Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to do hard service against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he from Tyre no wages, nor his army, for the service that he had served against it. ¹⁹Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry away her multitude, and seize her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. ²⁰I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah. ²¹In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them: and they shall know that I am Jehovah.

Chapter 30

¹And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, ²Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Howl ye, Alas for the day! ³For the day is at hand, yea, the day of Jehovah is at hand, a day of clouds; it shall be the time of the nations. ⁴And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and there shall be anguish in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be overthrown. ⁵Cush, and Phut, and Lud, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the children of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword. ⁶Thus saith Jehovah: They also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her strength shall come down: from Migdol to Syene shall they fall in her by the sword, saith the Lord Jehovah. ⁷And they shall be desolated in the midst of the countries that are desolated, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. ⁸And they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and all her helpers shall be broken. ⁹In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships, to make careless Ethiopia afraid; and anguish shall come upon them, as in the day of Egypt: for behold, it cometh! ¹⁰Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. ¹¹He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land; and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with slain. ¹²And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked; and I will make the land desolate, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I Jehovah have spoken it. ¹³Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince out of the land of Egypt; and I will put fear in the land of Egypt. ¹⁴And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set a fire in Zoan, and will execute judgment in No. ¹⁵And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the stronghold of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No. ¹⁶And I will set a fire in Egypt: Sin shall be in great anguish, and No shall be rent asunder, and at Noph there shall be enemies in open day. ¹⁷The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword; and these shall go into captivity. ¹⁸And at Tehaphnehes the day shall be darkened, when I break there the yokes of Egypt, and the pride of her strength shall cease in her; as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. ¹⁹Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.

²⁰And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, ²¹Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and behold, it shall not be bound up to apply remedies, to put a bandage to bind it, to make it strong to hold the sword. ²²Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong one, and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand. ²³And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries. ²⁴And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand; and I will break Pharaoh’s arms, so that he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly-wounded man. ²⁵And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I have put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall have stretched it out upon the land of Egypt. ²⁶And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the countries: and they shall know that I am Jehovah.

Chapter 31

¹And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first of the month, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, ²Son of man, say unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude: Whom art thou like in thy greatness? ³Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches and a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature: and his top was amidst the thick boughs. ⁴The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high; its streams ran round about his plantation, and it sent out its rivulets unto all the trees of the field. ⁵Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, because of great waters, when he shot forth. ⁶All the fowl of the heavens made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all the great nations. ⁷Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: because his root was by great waters. ⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him; the cypresses were not like his boughs, and the plane-trees were not as his branches: no tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. ⁹I had made him fair by the multitude of his branches; and all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

¹⁰Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast lifted up thyself in stature, …and he hath set his top amidst the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height, ¹¹I have given him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. ¹²And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off and have left him; upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken in all the watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. ¹³Upon his fallen trunk do all the fowl of the heavens dwell, and all the beasts of the field are upon his branches: ¹⁴to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, nor set their top amidst the thick boughs, and that none of them that drink water stand up in his height by himself; for they are all given over unto death in the lower parts…