The Babylonian Exile

Speak, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against thee, Pharao king of Egypt, thou great dragon that liest in the midst of thy rivers, and sayest: The river is mine, and I made myself.

But I will put a bridle in thy jaws: and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick to thy scales: and I will draw thee out of the midst of thy rivers, and all thy fish shall stick to thy scales.

And I will cast thee forth into the desert, and all the fish of thy river: thou shalt fall upon the face of the earth, thou shalt not be taken up, nor gathered together: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the air.

And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord: because thou hast been a staff of a reed to the house of Israel.

When they took hold of thee with the hand thou didst break, and rent all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brokest, and weakenest all their loins.

Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring the sword upon thee: and cut off man and beast out of thee.

And the land of Egypt shall become a desert, and a wilderness: and they shall know that I am the Lord, because thou hast said: The river is mine, and I made it.

Therefore, behold I come against thee, and thy rivers: and I will make the land of Egypt utterly desolate, and wasted by the sword, from the tower of Syene, even to the borders of Ethiopia.

The foot of man shall not pass through it, neither shall the foot of beasts go through it: nor shall it be inhabited during forty years.

And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the lands that are desolate, and the cities thereof in the midst of the cites that are destroyed, and they shall be desolate for forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

For thus saith the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the people among whom they had been scattered.

And I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and will place them in the land of Phatures, in the land of their nativity, and they shall be there a low kingdom:

It shall be the lowest among other kingdoms, and it shall no more be exalted over the nations, and I will diminish them that they shall rule no more over the nations.

And they shall be no more a confidence to the house of Israel, teaching iniquity, that they may flee, and follow them: and they shall know that I am the Lord God.

And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year in the first month, in the first of the month: that the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Son of man, Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon hath made his army to undergo hard service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled and there hath been no reward given him, nor his army for Tyre, for the service that he rendered me against it.

Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will set Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon in the land of Egypt: and he shall take her multitude, and take the booty thereof for a prey, and rifle the spoils thereof: and it shall be wages for his army.

And for the service that he hath done me against it: I have given him the land of Egypt, because he hath laboured for me, saith the Lord God.

In that day a horn shall bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give thee an open mouth in the midst of them: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

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

Son of man prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Howl ye, Woe, woe to the day:

For the day is near, yea the day of the Lord is near: a cloudy day, it shall be the time of the nations.

And the sword shall come upon Egypt: and there shall be dread in Ethiopia, when the wounded shall fall in Egypt, and the multitude thereof shall be taken away, and the foundations thereof shall be destroyed.

Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the rest of the crowd, and Chub, and the children of the land of the covenant, shall fall with them by the sword.

Thus saith the Lord God: They also that uphold Egypt shall fall, and the pride of her empire shall be brought down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord the God of hosts.