¹THE WORD of the Lord came again to me, saying,

²Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord God: Wail, Alas for the day!

³For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time [of doom] for the nations.

⁴And a sword shall come upon Egypt, and anguish and great sorrow shall be in Ethiopia (Cush), when the slain fall in Egypt and they [of Babylon] carry away her great mass of people and of things and her foundations are broken down.

⁵Ethiopia (Cush) and Put, Lud and all the mingled people [foreigners living in Egypt], Cub (Lub, Libya) and the children of the land of the covenant [the Jews who had taken refuge in Egypt] shall fall with [the Egyptians] by the sword.

⁶Thus says the Lord: They also who uphold or lean upon and are supported by Egypt shall fall, and the pride of her power shall come down; from Migdol [in the north] to Syene [in the south] they shall fall within her by the sword, says the Lord God.

⁷And they shall be desolated in the midst of countries that are desolated, and her cities shall be in the midst of cities that are wasted [by plunder and subjection].

⁸And they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service], when I have set a fire in Egypt and all her helpers are broken and destroyed.

⁹In that day shall [swift] messengers go forth from Me in ships to terrify the careless and unsuspecting Ethiopians, and there shall be anguish and great sorrow upon them as in the day of Egypt's [doom], for behold, [their day] comes!

¹⁰Thus says the Lord God: I will also make the tumult and the wealth and the large population of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.

¹¹He and his people with him, the [most] terrible of the nations, shall be brought in to destroy the land, and they shall draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain.

¹²And I will make the [artificial] streams [of the Nile delta] dry and will sell the land into the hand of evil men, and I will make the land desolate, and all that is in it, by the hand of strangers. I the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service] have spoken it.

¹³Thus says the Lord God: I will also destroy the idols and I will put an end to the images in Noph or Memphis, and there shall be no longer a prince of the land of Egypt. And I will put fear in the land of Egypt.

¹⁴And I will make Pathros desolate and will set fire to Zoan and will execute judgments and punishments upon No or Thebes.

¹⁵And I will pour My wrath upon Pelusium, the stronghold of Egypt, and I will cut off the tumult, the prosperity and the population of No or Thebes.

¹⁶And I will set fire to Egypt; Pelusium shall have great anguish and No or Thebes shall be torn open and Noph or Memphis shall have adversaries in the daytime and all the day long.

¹⁷The young men of Aven or On and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword, and the [women and children] shall go into captivity.

¹⁸At Tehaphnehes also the day shall withdraw itself and be dark when I break there the yokes and dominion of Egypt, and the pride of her power shall come to an end. As for her, a cloud [of calamities] shall cover her and her daughters shall go into captivity.

¹⁹Thus will I execute judgments and punishments upon Egypt. Then shall they know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].

²⁰And in the eleventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon], in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²¹Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and behold, it has not been bound up to heal it by binding it with a bandage, to make it strong to hold and wield the sword.

²²Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will break his arms, both the strong one and the one which was broken, and I will cause the sword to fall from his hand.

²³And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and will disperse them throughout the countries.

²⁴And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand, but I will break Pharaoh's arms and he will groan before [Nebuchadrezzar] with the groanings of a mortally wounded man.

²⁵But I will strengthen and hold up the arms of the king of Babylon and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down, and they [of Egypt] shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service], when I put My sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall stretch it out upon the land of Egypt.

²⁶And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them through the countries, and they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].