The Babylonian Exile

With the hoofs of his horses he shall tread down all thy streets, thy people he shall kill with the sword, and thy famous statues shall fall to the ground.

They shall waste thy riches, they shall make a spoil of thy merchandise: and they shall destroy thy walls, and pull down thy fine houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the waters.

And I will make the multitude of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall be heard no more.

And I will make thee like a naked rock, thou shalt be a drying place for nets, neither shalt thou be built any more: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

Thus saith the Lord God to Tyre: Shall not the islands shake at the sound of thy fall, and the groans of thy slain when they shall be killed in the midst of thee?

Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones: and take off their robes, and cast away their broidered garments, and be clothed with astonishment: they shall sit on the ground, and with amazement shall wonder at thy sudden fall.

And taking up a lamentation over thee, they shall say to thee: How art thou fallen, that dwellest in the sea, renowned city that wast strong in the sea, with thy inhabitants whom all did dread?

Now shall the ships be astonished in the day of thy terror: and the islands in the sea shall be troubled because no one cometh out of thee.

For thus saith the Lord God: When I shall make thee a desolate city like the cities that are not inhabited: and shall bring the deep upon thee, and many waters shall cover thee:

And when I shall bring thee down with those that descend into the pit to the everlasting people, and shall set thee in the lowest parts of the earth, as places desolate of old, with them that are brought down into the pit, that thou be not inhabited: and when I shall give glory in the land of the living,

I will bring thee to nothing, and thou shalt not be, and if thou be sought for, thou shalt not be found any more for ever, saith the Lord God.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Thou therefore, O son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre:

And say to Tyre that dwelleth at the entry of the sea, being the mart of the people for many islands: Thus saith the Lord God: O Tyre, thou hast said: I am of perfect beauty,

And situate in the heart of the sea. Thy neighbours, that built thee, have perfected thy beauty:

With fir trees of Sanir they have built thee with all sea planks: they have taken cedars from Libanus to make thee masts.

They have cut thy oars out of the oaks of Basan: and they have made thee benches of Indian ivory and cabins with things brought from the islands of Italy.

Fine broidered linen from Egypt was woven for thy sail, to be spread on thy mast: blue and purple from the islands of Elisa, were made thy covering.

The inhabitants of Sidon, and the Arabians were thy rowers: thy wise men, O Tyre, were thy pilots.

The ancients of Gebal, and the wise men thereof furnished mariners for the service of thy various furniture: all the ships of the sea, and their mariners were thy factors.

The Persians, and Lydians, and the Libyans were thy soldiers in thy army: they hung up the buckler and the helmet in thee for thy ornament.

The men of Arad were with thy army upon thy walls round about: the Pygmeans also that were in thy towers, hung up their quivers on thy walls round about: they perfected thy beauty.

The Carthaginians thy merchants supplied thy fairs with a multitude of all kinds of riches, with silver, iron, tin, and lead,

Greece, Thubal, and Mosoch, they were thy merchants, they brought to thy people slaves and vessels of brass.

From the house of Thogorma they brought horses, and horsemen, and mules to thy market.