Ezekiel 29:2
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2 Mortal, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt;(A)
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Ezekiel 6:2
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2 O mortal, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them
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Jeremiah 46:2-16
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2 Concerning Egypt, about the army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, which was by the River Euphrates at Carchemish and which King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah:(A)
3 Prepare buckler and shield,
and advance for battle!(B)
4 Harness the horses;
mount the steeds!
Take your stations with helmets on,
whet the lances,
put on coats of mail!
5 Why do I see them terrified?
They have fallen back;
their warriors are beaten down
and have fled in haste.
They do not look back—
terror is all around!
says the Lord.(C)
6 The swift cannot flee away,
nor can the warrior escape;
in the north by the River Euphrates
they have stumbled and fallen.(D)
7 Who is this, rising like the Nile,
like rivers whose waters surge?(E)
8 Egypt rises like the Nile,
like rivers whose waters surge.
It said, “Let me rise; let me cover the earth;
let me destroy cities and their inhabitants.”(F)
9 Advance, O horses,
and dash madly, O chariots!
Let the warriors go forth:
Cush and Put, who carry the shield,
the Ludim, who draw[a] the bow.(G)
10 That day is the day of the Lord God of hosts,
a day of retribution,
to gain vindication from his foes.
The sword shall devour and be sated
and drink its fill of their blood.
For the Lord God of hosts holds a sacrifice
in the land of the north by the River Euphrates.(H)
11 Go up to Gilead, and take balm,
O virgin daughter Egypt!
In vain you have used many medicines;
there is no healing for you.(I)
12 The nations have heard of your shame,
and the earth is full of your cry,
for warrior has stumbled against warrior;
both have fallen together.(J)
Babylonia Will Strike Egypt
13 The word that the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about the coming of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon to attack the land of Egypt:(K)
14 Declare in Egypt and proclaim in Migdol;
proclaim in Memphis and Tahpanhes;
Say, “Take your stations and be ready,
for the sword shall devour those around you.”(L)
15 Why has Apis[b] fled?
Why did your bull not stand?
Because the Lord thrust him down.
16 Your multitude stumbled[c] and fell,
and one said to another,
“Come, let us go back to our own people
and to the land of our birth,
because of the destroying sword.”(M)
Jeremiah 44:30
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30 Thus says the Lord, I am going to give Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, into the hands of his enemies, those who seek his life, just as I gave King Zedekiah of Judah into the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, his enemy who sought his life.”(A)
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Zechariah 14:18-19
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18 And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, there will be no rain for them; there will be the plague that the Lord inflicts on the nations that do not go up to keep the Festival of Booths.[a](A) 19 Such shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to keep the Festival of Booths.[b](B)
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Joel 3:19
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19 Egypt shall become a desolation
and Edom a desolate wilderness,
because of the violence done to the people of Judah,
in whose land they have shed innocent blood.(A)
Ezekiel 30-32
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Lamentation for Egypt
30 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, prophesy, and say: Thus says the Lord God:
Wail, “Alas for the day!”(A)
3 For a day is near,
the day of the Lord is near;
it will be a day of clouds,
a time of doom[a] for the nations.(B)
4 A sword shall come upon Egypt,
and anguish shall be in Cush,
when the slain fall in Egypt,
and its wealth is carried away,
and its foundations are torn down.(C)
5 Cush and Put and Lud and all the mixed populations and Libya[b] and the people of the allied land[c] shall fall with them by the sword.(D)
6 Thus says the Lord:
Those who support Egypt shall fall,
and its proud might shall come down;
from Migdol to Syene
they shall fall within it by the sword,
says the Lord God.(E)
7 They shall be desolated among other desolated countries,
and their cities shall lie among cities laid waste.(F)
8 Then they shall know that I am the Lord,
when I have set fire to Egypt,
and all who help it are broken.(G)
9 On that day, messengers shall go out from me in ships to terrify the secure Cushites, and anguish shall come upon them on the day of Egypt’s doom,[d] for it is coming!(H)
10 Thus says the Lord God:
I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt,
by the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon.(I)
11 He and his people with him, the most terrible of the nations,
shall be brought in to destroy the land,
and they shall draw their swords against Egypt
and fill the land with the slain.(J)
12 I will dry up the channels of the Nile
and will sell the land into the hand of evildoers;
I will bring desolation upon the land and everything in it
by the hand of foreigners;
I the Lord have spoken.(K)
13 Thus says the Lord God:
I will destroy the idols
and put an end to the images in Memphis;
there shall no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt,
so I will put fear in the land of Egypt.(L)
14 I will make Pathros a desolation
and will set fire to Zoan
and will execute acts of judgment on Thebes.(M)
15 I will pour my wrath upon Pelusium,
the stronghold of Egypt,
and will cut off the hordes of Thebes.(N)
16 I will set fire to Egypt;
Pelusium shall be in great agony;
Thebes shall be breached
and Memphis face adversaries by day.
17 The young men of On and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword,
and the cities themselves[e] shall go into captivity.
18 At Tehaphnehes the day shall be dark,
when I break there the dominion of Egypt,
and its proud might shall come to an end;
the city[f] shall be covered by a cloud,
and its daughter towns shall go into captivity.(O)
19 Thus I will execute acts of judgment on Egypt.
Then they shall know that I am the Lord.(P)
Proclamation against Pharaoh
20 In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 21 Mortal, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; it has not been bound up for healing or wrapped with a bandage, so that it may become strong to wield the sword.(Q) 22 Therefore thus says the Lord God: I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will break his arms, both the strong arm and the one that was broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand.(R) 23 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands.(S) 24 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan before him with the groans of one mortally wounded.(T) 25 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh shall fall. And they shall know that I am the Lord when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon. He shall stretch it out against the land of Egypt,(U) 26 and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.(V)
The Lofty Cedar
31 In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes:
Whom are you like in your greatness?(W)
3 Consider Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon,
with fair branches and forest shade,
and of great height,
its top among the clouds.(X)
4 The waters nourished it;
the deep made it grow tall,
flowing with its rivers
around the place it was planted,
sending forth its streams
to all the trees of the field.(Y)
5 So it towered high
above all the trees of the field;
its boughs grew large
and its branches long,
from abundant water in its shoots.(Z)
6 All the birds of the air
made their nests in its boughs;
under its branches all the animals of the field
gave birth to their young,
and in its shade
all great nations lived.(AA)
7 It was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches,
for its roots went down
to abundant water.
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it
nor the fir trees equal its boughs;
the plane trees were as nothing
compared with its branches;
no tree in the garden of God
was like it in beauty.(AB)
9 I made it beautiful
with its mass of branches,
the envy of all the trees of Eden
that were in the garden of God.
10 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because it[g] towered high and set its top among the clouds and its heart was proud of its height,(AC) 11 I gave it into the hand of the prince of the nations; he has dealt with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out.(AD) 12 Foreigners from the most terrible of the nations have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in all the watercourses of the land, and all the peoples of the earth went away from its shade and left it.(AE)
13 On its fallen trunk settle
all the birds of the air,
and among its boughs lodge
all the wild animals.(AF)
14 All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to lofty height or set their tops among the clouds and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height.
For all of them are handed over to death,
to the world below;
along with mortals,
with those who go down to the Pit.(AG)
15 Thus says the Lord God: On the day it went down to Sheol I closed the deep over it and covered it; I restrained its rivers, and its mighty waters were checked. I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it.(AH) 16 I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who go down to the Pit, and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that were well watered, were consoled in the world below.(AI) 17 They also went down to Sheol with it, to those killed by the sword, along with its allies,[h] those who lived in its shade among the nations.(AJ)
18 Which among the trees of Eden was like you in glory and in greatness? Now you shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below; you shall lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are killed by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his horde, says the Lord God.(AK)
Lamentation over Pharaoh and Egypt
32 In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him:
You consider yourself a lion among the nations,
but you are like a dragon in the seas;
you thrash about in your streams,
trouble the water with your feet,
and foul your[i] streams.(AL)
3 Thus says the Lord God:
In an assembly of many peoples
I will throw my net over you,
and I[j] will haul you up in my dragnet.(AM)
4 I will throw you on the ground;
on the open field I will fling you
and will cause all the birds of the air to settle on you,
and I will let the wild animals of the whole earth gorge themselves on you.(AN)
5 I will strew your flesh on the mountains
and fill the valleys with your carcass.[k]
6 I will drench the land with your flowing blood
up to the mountains,
and the watercourses will be filled with you.(AO)
7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens
and make their stars dark;
I will cover the sun with a cloud,
and the moon shall not give its light.(AP)
8 All the shining lights of the heavens
I will darken above you
and put darkness on your land,
says the Lord God.
9 I will trouble the hearts of many peoples
as I carry you captive[l] among the nations,
into countries you have not known.(AQ)
10 I will make many peoples appalled at you;
their kings shall shudder because of you.
When I brandish my sword before them,
they shall tremble every moment
for their lives, each one of them,
on the day of your downfall.(AR)
11 For thus says the Lord God:
The sword of the king of Babylon shall come against you.(AS)
12 I will cause your hordes to fall
by the swords of mighty ones,
all of them most terrible among the nations.
They shall bring to ruin the pride of Egypt,
and all its hordes shall perish.(AT)
13 I will destroy all its livestock
from beside abundant waters,
and no human foot shall trouble them any more,
nor shall the hoofs of cattle trouble them.(AU)
14 Then I will make their waters clear
and cause their streams to run like oil, says the Lord God.
15 When I make the land of Egypt desolate
and when the land is stripped of all that fills it,
when I strike down all who live in it,
then they shall know that I am the Lord.(AV)
16 This is a lamentation; it shall be chanted.
The women of the nations shall chant it.
Over Egypt and all its hordes they shall chant it,
says the Lord God.(AW)
Dirge over Egypt
17 In the twelfth year, in the first month,[m] on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me:
18 Mortal, wail over the hordes of Egypt
and send them down,
with Egypt[n] and the daughters of majestic nations,
to the world below,
with those who go down to the Pit.(AX)
19 “Whom do you surpass in beauty?
Go down! Be laid to rest with the uncircumcised!”(AY)
20 They shall fall among those who are killed by the sword. Egypt[o] has been handed over to the sword; both it and its hordes will be carried away.[p] 21 The mighty chiefs shall speak of them, with their helpers, out of the midst of Sheol: “They have come down; they lie still, the uncircumcised, killed by the sword.”(AZ)
22 Assyria is there and all its company, their graves all around it, all of them killed, fallen by the sword.(BA) 23 Their graves are set in the uttermost parts of the Pit. Its company is all around its grave, all of them killed, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living.(BB)
24 Elam is there and all its hordes around its grave, all of them killed, fallen by the sword, who went down uncircumcised into the world below, who spread terror in the land of the living. They bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit.(BC) 25 They have made Elam[q] a bed among the slain with all its hordes, their graves all around it, all of them uncircumcised, killed by the sword, for terror of them was spread in the land of the living, and they bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit; they are placed among the slain.(BD)
26 Meshech and Tubal are there, and all their multitude, their graves all around them, all of them uncircumcised, pierced by the sword, for they spread terror in the land of the living.(BE) 27 And they do not lie with the fallen warriors of long ago[r] who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads and whose shields[s] are upon their bones; for the terror of the warriors was in the land of the living.(BF) 28 So you shall be broken and lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are killed by the sword.
29 Edom is there, its kings and all its princes, who for all their might are laid with those who are killed by the sword; they lie with the uncircumcised, with those who go down to the Pit.(BG)
30 The princes of the north are there, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down in shame with the slain, for all the terror that they caused by their might; they lie uncircumcised with those who are killed by the sword and bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit.(BH)
31 When Pharaoh sees them, he will be consoled for all his hordes—Pharaoh and all his army, killed by the sword, says the Lord God. 32 For he[t] spread terror in the land of the living; therefore he shall be laid to rest among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword—Pharaoh and all his multitude, says the Lord God.
Footnotes
- 30.3 Heb lacks of doom
- 30.5 Compare Gk Syr Vg: Heb Cub
- 30.5 Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 30.9 Heb the day of Egypt
- 30.17 Heb and they
- 30.18 Heb she
- 31.10 Syr Vg: Heb you
- 31.17 Heb its arms
- 32.2 Heb their
- 32.3 Gk Vg: Heb they
- 32.5 Symmachus Syr Vg: Heb your height
- 32.9 Gk: Heb bring your destruction
- 32.17 Gk: Heb lacks in the first month
- 32.18 Heb it
- 32.20 Heb It
- 32.20 Cn: Heb carry away both it and its hordes
- 32.25 Heb it
- 32.27 Gk OL: Heb of the uncircumcised
- 32.27 Cn: Heb iniquities
- 32.32 Cn: Heb I
Ezekiel 28:21-22
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21 Mortal, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against it,(A) 22 and say: Thus says the Lord God:
I am against you, O Sidon,
and I will gain glory in your midst.
They shall know that I am the Lord
when I execute judgments in it
and manifest my holiness in it;(B)
Ezekiel 25:2
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2 Mortal, set your face toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them.(A)
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Ezekiel 21:2
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2 Mortal, set your face toward Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuaries; prophesy against the land of Israel(A)
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Ezekiel 20:46
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46 Mortal, set your face toward the south, preach against the south, and prophesy against the forest land in the Negeb;(A)
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Jeremiah 43:8-13
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8 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes:(A) 9 Take some large stones in your hands, and bury them in the clay pavement[a] that is at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes. Let the Judeans see you do it, 10 and say to them, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to send and take my servant King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and I will set his throne above these stones that I have buried, and he will spread his royal canopy over them.(B) 11 He shall come and ravage the land of Egypt, giving
those who are destined for pestilence, to pestilence,
and those who are destined for captivity, to captivity,
and those who are destined for the sword, to the sword.(C)
12 “I shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive, and he shall pick clean the land of Egypt as a shepherd picks his cloak clean of vermin, and he shall depart from there safely.(D) 13 He shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire.”
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- 43.9 Meaning of Heb uncertain
Jeremiah 25:18-19
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18 Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, an object of hissing and of cursing, as they are today;(A) 19 Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, and all his people;
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Jeremiah 9:25-26
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25 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will attend to all those who are circumcised only in the foreskin:(A) 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all those with shaved temples who live in the desert. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.(B)
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Isaiah 20
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Isaiah Dramatizes the Conquest of Egypt and Cush
20 In the year that the commander-in-chief, who was sent by King Sargon of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and took it(A)— 2 at that time the Lord had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go and loose the sackcloth from your loins and take your sandals off your feet,” and he had done so, walking naked and barefoot.(B) 3 Then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush,(C) 4 so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as captives and the Cushites as exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.(D) 5 And they shall be dismayed and confounded because of Cush their hope and of Egypt their boast.(E) 6 On that day the inhabitants of this coastland will say, ‘See, this is what has happened to those in whom we hoped and to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! And we, how shall we escape?’ ”(F)
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Isaiah 18:1-19:17
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An Oracle concerning Cush
18 Woe, land of buzzing[a] wings
beyond the rivers of Cush,(A)
2 sending ambassadors by the Nile
in vessels of papyrus on the waters!
Go, you swift messengers,
to a nation tall and smooth,
to a people feared near and far,
a nation mighty[b] and conquering,
whose land the rivers divide.(B)
3 All you inhabitants of the world,
you who live on the earth,
when a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
When a trumpet is blown, listen!(C)
4 For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look from my dwelling
like clear heat in sunshine,
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”(D)
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over
and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he will cut off the shoots with pruning hooks,
and the spreading branches he will hew away.(E)
6 They shall all be left
to the birds of prey of the mountains
and to the animals of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.(F)
7 At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord of hosts from[c] a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.(G)
An Oracle concerning Egypt
19 An oracle concerning Egypt.
See, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud
and comes to Egypt;
the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.(H)
2 I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
and they will fight, one against the other,
neighbor against neighbor,
city against city, kingdom against kingdom;(I)
3 the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
and I will confound their plans;
they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead
and the ghosts and the familiar spirits;(J)
4 I will deliver the Egyptians
into the hand of a hard master;
a fierce king will rule over them,
says the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts.(K)
5 The waters of the Nile will be dried up,
and the river will be parched and dry;(L)
6 its canals will become foul,
and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up.
Reeds and rushes will rot away,(M)
7 the reeds beside the Nile;[d]
all that is sown by the Nile will dry up,
be driven away, and be no more.
8 Those who fish will mourn;
all who cast hooks in the Nile will lament,
and those who spread nets on the water will languish.
9 The workers in flax will be in despair,
and the carders and those at the loom will grow pale.
10 Its weavers will be dismayed,
and all who work for wages will be grieved.(N)
11 Clearly the princes of Zoan are foolish;
the wise counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am one of the sages,
a descendant of ancient kings”?(O)
12 Where now are your sages?
Let them tell you and make known
what the Lord of hosts has planned against Egypt.(P)
13 The princes of Zoan have become fools,
and the princes of Memphis are deluded;
those who are the cornerstones of its tribes
have led Egypt astray.(Q)
14 The Lord has poured into them[e]
a spirit of confusion;
and they have made Egypt stagger in all its doings
as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.(R)
15 Neither head nor tail, palm branch or reed,
will be able to do anything for Egypt.
16 On that day the Egyptians will be like women and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of hosts raises against them.(S) 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror[f] to the Egyptians; everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the plan that the Lord of hosts is planning against them.(T)
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