Prophecy Against Egypt

Ezekiel 29

¹ In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: ² Mortal, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt;

³ speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God:

I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon sprawling
in the midst of its channels,
saying, "My Nile is my own;
I made it for myself."
⁴ I will put hooks in your jaws,
and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales.
I will draw you up from your channels,
with all the fish of your channels
sticking to your scales.
⁵ I will fling you into the wilderness,
you and all the fish of your channels;
you shall fall in the open field,
and not be gathered and buried.
To the animals of the earth and to the birds of the air
I have given you as food.

⁶ Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know
that I am the Lord
because you ₁ were a staff of reed
to the house of Israel;
⁷ when they grasped you with the hand, you broke,
and tore all their shoulders;
and when they leaned on you, you broke,
and made all their legs unsteady. ₂

⁸ Therefore, thus says the Lord God: I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you human being and animal;

⁹ and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.
Because you ₃ said, "The Nile is mine, and I made it," ¹⁰ therefore, I am against you, and against your channels, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia. ₄ ¹¹ No human foot shall pass through it, and no animal foot shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years. ¹² I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolated countries; and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries.

¹³ Further, thus says the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered; ¹⁴ and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt, and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin; and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. ¹⁵ It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and never again exalt itself above the nations; and I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations. ¹⁶ The Egyptians ₅ shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel; they will recall their iniquity, when they turned to them for aid. Then they shall know that I am the Lord God.

¹⁷ In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁸ Mortal, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labor that he had expended against it. ¹⁹ Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will give the land of Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon; and he shall carry off its wealth and despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army. ²⁰ I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he labored, because they worked for me, says the Lord God.

²¹ On that day I will cause a horn to sprout up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.