Isaiah 19:1-15

New Century Version

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.

² The 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.
³ The 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.”
⁴ The Lord God All-Powerful says,
“I will hand Egypt over to a hard master,
    and a powerful king will rule over them.”

⁵ The sea will become dry,
    and the water will disappear from the Nile River.
⁶ The canals will stink;
    the streams of Egypt will decrease and dry up.
All the water plants will rot;
⁷ all the plants along the banks of the Nile will die.
Even the planted fields by the Nile
    will dry up, blow away, and disappear.
⁸ The fishermen, all those who catch fish from the Nile,
    will groan and cry;
those who fish in the Nile will be sad.
⁹ All the people who make cloth from flax will be sad,
    and those who weave linen will lose hope.
¹⁰ Those who weave cloth will be broken.
    All those who work for money will be sad.

¹¹ The 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’?
¹² Egypt, where are your wise men?
    Let them show you
what the Lord All-Powerful has planned for Egypt.
¹³ The 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.
¹⁴ The Lord has made the leaders confused.
    They have led Egypt to wander in the wrong ways,
    like drunk people stumbling in their own vomit.
¹⁵ There is nothing Egypt can do;
    no one there can help.