Isaiah 19:1–17

An Oracle Concerning Egypt

¹The ^1aoracle concerning ^bEgypt.

Behold, Yahweh is ^criding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;

The ^didols of Egypt will shake at His presence,

And the ^eheart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

²“So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;

And they will ^aeach fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,

City against city and kingdom against kingdom.

³“Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied to destruction within them;

And I will confuse their counsel,

So that ^athey will seek idols and ghosts of the dead

And to ¹mediums and spiritists.

⁴“Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a ^acruel master,

And a ¹strong king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.

^5aThe waters from the sea will dry up,

And the river will be parched and dry.

⁶The ^arivers will emit a stench,

The ^1bstreams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;

^cThe reeds and rushes will rot away.

⁷The bulrushes by the ^aNile, by the ¹edge of the Nile

And all the sown fields by the Nile

Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

⁸And the ^afishermen will lament,

And all those who cast a ¹line into the Nile will mourn,

And those who spread nets on the waters will ²languish.

⁹Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax

And the weavers of white ^acloth will be ashamed.

¹⁰And ¹the ^apillars of Egypt will be crushed;

All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.

¹¹The princes of ^1aZoan are merely ignorant fools;

The counsel of Pharaoh’s wisest counselors has become ²senseless.

How can you men say to Pharaoh,

“I am a son of the ^bwise, a son of the kings of old”?

¹²Well then, where are your wise men?

Please let them tell you,

And let them ¹understand what Yahweh of hosts

Has ^acounseled against Egypt.

¹³The princes of ¹Zoan have acted as ignorant fools,

The princes of ^aMemphis are deluded;

Those who are the ^bcornerstone of her tribes

²Have led Egypt astray.

¹⁴Yahweh has mixed within her a spirit of ^adistortion;

^bThey have led Egypt astray in all ¹that it does,

As a ^cdrunken man ²strays into his vomit.

¹⁵There will be no work for Egypt

^aWhich its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.

Yahweh Will Bless Egypt, Assyria, and Israel

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in ^adread because of the ^bwaving of the hand of Yahweh of hosts, which He is going to wave over them.

¹⁷And the land of Judah will become a ¹terror to Egypt; everyone ²to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it because of the ^acounsel of Yahweh of hosts which He is counseling against them.