Add parallel Print Page Options

Pharaoh Too Will Descend to the Grave

32 In the twelfth year,[a] in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, raise a lament over Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and say this to him.

You consider yourself a young lion among the nations, but you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash around in your rivers. You churn up the water with your feet and make the rivers muddy.

This is what the Lord God says. I will cast my net over you by an array of mighty nations, and they will haul you up in my fishing net. I will haul you up and leave you on dry land and throw you into an open field. I will let all the birds of the air settle on you. I will let all the wild animals of the earth feed on you till they are filled. I will dump your flesh on the mountains and fill the ravines with your carcass. I will drench the land with the overflow of your blood, up to the mountains, and the streambeds will be filled with your remains.[b]

When you are snuffed out, I will cover the sky and darken its stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. I will black out all the bright lights in the sky because of you. I will bring darkness over your land, declares the Lord God. I will disturb the hearts of mighty peoples when I bring word about your downfall[c] to the nations, to countries you do not know. 10 I will make many peoples appalled by you, and their kings’ hair will stand on end because of you, when I brandish my sword in front of them. They will tremble every minute, each for his own life, on the day when you fall.

11 For this is what the Lord God says. The sword of the king of Babylon will come against you. 12 I will cut down your horde by the swords of his warriors, all of them from the most ruthless of nations. They will devastate the pride of Egypt, and its whole horde will be exterminated. 13 I will kill all its livestock beside many waters. No human foot will ever muddy the waters again, nor will the hoofs of cattle ever muddy them. 14 Then I will let their waters settle and become clear and will make their channels flow like oil, declares the Lord God. 15 When I cause the land of Egypt to be deserted, when the land is emptied of everything that filled it, when I have struck down all its inhabitants, then they will know that I am the Lord.

16 This is a lament, which they will wail. The daughters of the nations will wail it. Over Egypt and all its horde they will wail it, declares the Lord God.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Ezekiel 32:1 Some Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and the Syriac read the eleventh year in 32:1, and some Hebrew manuscripts and the Syriac read the eleventh year in 32:17. Events in the eleventh year would precede the fall of Jerusalem in 586 bc.
  2. Ezekiel 32:6 Literally with you
  3. Ezekiel 32:9 The Greek text reads captivity.