An Oracle Concerning Tyre

¹The oracle concerning Tyre.[#23:1 Or burden of]

Wail, O ships of Tarshish,

For Tyre is destroyed, without house or harbor;

It is revealed to them from the land of Cyprus.

²Be silent, you inhabitants of the coastland,

You merchants of Sidon;

Your messengers crossed the sea

³And were on many waters.

The grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile was her revenue;

And she was the nations’ gain.

⁴Be ashamed, O Sidon;

For the sea speaks, the strong defense of the sea, saying,

“I have neither travailed nor given birth;

I have neither brought up choice men nor reared virgins.”

⁵When the report reaches Egypt,

They will be in travail at the report of Tyre.

⁶Pass over to Tarshish;

Wail, O inhabitants of the coastland.

⁷Is this your exultant city ,

Whose origin is from days of old,

Whose feet used to lead her to sojourn in distant places?

⁸¶Who has counseled this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,

Whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?

⁹Yahweh of hosts has counseled it, to defile the pride of all beauty,

To make contemptuous all the honored of the earth.

¹⁰Overflow your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish;[#23:10 Lit Pass over]

There is no more restraint.

¹¹He has stretched His hand out over the sea;

He has made the kingdoms tremble;

Yahweh has given a command concerning Canaan to demolish its strong defenses.

¹²¶So He said, “You shall exult no more, O crushed virgin daughter of Sidon.

Arise, pass over to Cyprus; even there you will find no rest.”

¹³Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people which was not; Assyria established it for desert creatures—they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

¹⁴Wail, O ships of Tarshish,

For your strong defense is destroyed.

¹⁵Now it will be in that day, that Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot:

¹⁶Take your harp, walk about the city,

O forgotten harlot;

Pluck the strings skillfully, sing many songs,

That you may be remembered.

¹⁷And it will be at the end of seventy years that Yahweh will visit Tyre. Then she will go back to her harlot’s wages and will play the harlot with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.[#23:17 Lit of the earth on the face of the land]

¹⁸And her gain and her harlot’s wages will be set apart to Yahweh; it will not be treasured up or hoarded, but her gain will become sufficient food and choice attire for those who inhabit the presence of Yahweh.