Isaiah 18:1-19:17

English Standard Version

³ All you inhabitants of the world,
    you who dwell on the earth,
when ^(F)a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
    When a trumpet is blown, hear!
⁴ For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look ^(G)from my dwelling
    like clear heat in sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
^5 (H)For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,
    and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,
    and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
^6 (I)They shall all of them be left
    to the birds of prey of the mountains
    and to the beasts of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
    and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

from a people ^(K)tall and smooth,
    from a people feared near and far,
a nation mighty and conquering,
    whose land the rivers divide,

Behold, the Lord ^(P)is riding on a swift cloud
    and comes to Egypt;
and ^(Q)the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
    and the heart of the Egyptians will ^(R)melt within them.
² And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
    ^(S)and they will fight, each against another
    and each against his neighbor,
    city against city, kingdom against kingdom;
³ and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
    and I will confound^[b] their ^(T)counsel;
and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers,
    and ^(U)the mediums and the necromancers;
⁴ and I will give over the Egyptians
    into the hand of ^(V)a hard master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,
    declares the Lord God of hosts.

⁵ And the waters of the sea will be dried up,
    and the river will be dry and parched,
⁶ and its canals will become foul,
    and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up,
    reeds and rushes will rot away.
⁷ There will be bare places by the Nile,
    on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched,
    will be driven away, and will be no more.
⁸ The ^(W)fishermen will mourn and lament,
    all who cast a hook in the Nile;
and they will languish
    who spread nets on the water.
⁹ The workers in ^(X)combed flax will be in despair,
    and the weavers of white cotton.
¹⁰ Those who are the ^(Y)pillars of the land will be crushed,
    and all who ^(Z)work for pay will be grieved.

¹¹ The princes of ^(AA)Zoan are utterly foolish;
    the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
    “I am a son of the wise,
    a son of ancient kings”?
¹² Where then are your ^(AB)wise men?
    Let them tell you
    that they might know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
¹³ The princes of ^(AC)Zoan have become fools,
    and the princes of ^(AD)Memphis are deluded;
those who are the ^(AE)cornerstones of her tribes
    have made Egypt stagger.
¹⁴ The Lord has mingled within her ^(AF)a spirit of confusion,
and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds,
    ^(AG)as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
¹⁵ And there will be nothing for Egypt
    that ^(AH)head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.