Chapter 30

And again word came to me from the Lord:

Son of man, tell them their doom in the name of the Lord God, and bid them raise loud lament: Alas, alas the day!

Nearer, nearer it comes, the Lord’s reckoning day, dawning in cloud; it is the heathen’s turn now.

Egypt shall feel the sword, and Ethiopia tremble to see Egypt’s warriors dying, Egypt’s wealth carried away, the foundations of Egypt overthrown.

Ethiop and Libyan and Lydian, all that motley host, men of Chub and men that hold their lands under treaty, by that same sword shall perish.

Such doom the Lord God pronounces; gone, all the props that supported her, gone her proud empire; all that lies beyond Syene, the Lord says, ravaged by the sword!

Land of Egypt shall be as the desert lands are, cities of Egypt as the ruined cities are;

my power they will never learn till I have spread fire over their country, till all their allies have perished.

When that day comes, there will be ships carrying news of my onset, to daunt the courage of Ethiopia; Egypt’s doom approaching, they shall know it and be afraid.

This too: I mean to make an end of Egypt’s prosperity, through king Nabuchodonosor of Babylon;

he and his army, in all the world is none fiercer, shall be let loose for the land’s undoing, their swords drawn to fill Egypt with dead.

I will dry up the course of its rivers, and leave the land at the mercy of its bitter enemies; nothing in it but shall be ravaged by alien hands; I, the Lord, have decreed it.

Down shall come the idols of Memphis, the Lord God says, I will have no more false gods there, and prince in all the land shall be none. Such terrors Egypt shall know,

Phatures all in ruin, Taphnis afire, in Alexandria my doom executed.

Pelusium, her fortress, shall feel my vengeance, Alexandria1 be laid waste;

all Egypt shall be ablaze, such bitter throes Pelusium shall have, Alexandria such devastation, Memphis such hard straits day by day.

Their warriors put to the sword, Heliopolis shall be enslaved and Bubastis;

dark days there shall be at Taphnis, when I crush the power of Egypt there, and all the pride of her empire is gone; a city in darkness, with all her women-folk carried off into exile.

Such doom I will execute upon the Egyptians, and they shall know my power at last.

In the eleventh year of Sedecias, on the seventh day of the first month, word came to me from the Lord:

Son of man, I have left Pharao, king of Egypt, with his arm broken; bound up and healed it may not be, clout or bandage is none to wind about it and give it support, give it strength to hold sword again.

Out upon Pharao, king of Egypt, says the Lord God; that strong arm of his, that broken arm of his, I will disable, strike the sword from his hand;

dispersed among the nations Egypt shall be, scattered to the winds.

Strong arms I will give the king of Babylon, and a sword to wield, to Pharao broken arms, and the groans of dying men for all his comfort.

The king of Babylon strong, and Pharao disabled; my power shall be known, when my sword, in Babylon’s hand, hangs over Egypt;

my power shall be known, when the men of Egypt are scattered wide as earth among the nations.