Isaiah 19:1–17

God’s Message to Egypt

19This is a message about Egypt:

Look, the Lord is coming on a fast cloud

to enter Egypt.

The idols of Egypt will tremble before him,

and Egypt’s courage will melt away.

²The Lord says, “I will cause the Egyptians to fight against themselves.

People will fight with their relatives;

neighbors will fight neighbors;

cities will fight cities;

kingdoms will fight kingdoms.

³The Egyptians will be afraid,

and I will ruin their plans.

They will ask advice from their idols and spirits of the dead,

from their mediums and fortune-tellers.”

⁴The Lord God All-Powerful says,

“I will hand Egypt over to a hard master,

and a powerful king will rule over them.”

⁵The sea will become dry,

and the water will disappear from the Nile River.

⁶The canals will stink;

the streams of Egypt will decrease and dry up.

All the water plants will rot;

⁷all the plants along the banks of the Nile will die.

Even the planted fields by the Nile

will dry up, blow away, and disappear.

⁸The fishermen, all those who catch fish from the Nile,

will groan and cry;

those who fish in the Nile will be sad.

⁹All the people who make cloth from flax will be sad,

and those who weave linen will lose hope.

¹⁰Those who weave cloth will be broken.

All those who work for money will be sad.

¹¹The officers of the city of Zoan are fools;

the wise men who advise the king of Egypt give wrong advice.

How can you say to him, ‘I am wise’?

How can you say, ‘I am from the old family of the kings’?

¹²Egypt, where are your wise men?

Let them show you

what the Lord All-Powerful has planned for Egypt.

¹³The officers of Zoan have been fooled;

the leaders of Memphis have believed false things.

So the leaders of Egypt

lead that nation the wrong way.

¹⁴The Lord has made the leaders confused.

They have led Egypt to wander in the wrong ways,

like drunk people stumbling in their own vomit.

¹⁵There is nothing Egypt can do;

no one there can help.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will be afraid of the Lord All-Powerful, because he will raise his hand to strike them down. ¹⁷The land of Judah will bring fear to Egypt. Anyone there who hears the name Judah will be afraid, because the Lord All-Powerful has planned terrible things for them.