Isaiah
23
- An oracle concerning Tyre: Wail, O ships
of Tarshish! For Tyre is destroyed and left without house or harbor. From
the land of Cyprus word has come to them.
- Be silent, you people of the island and
you merchants of Sidon, whom the seafarers have enriched.
- On the great waters came the grain of the
Shihor; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre, and she became the
marketplace of the nations.
- Be ashamed, O Sidon, and you, O fortress
of the sea, for the sea has spoken: "I have neither been in labor nor
given birth; I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters."
- When word comes to Egypt, they will be in
anguish at the report from Tyre.
- Cross over to Tarshish; wail, you people
of the island.
- Is this your city of revelry, the old, old
city, whose feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands ?
- Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower
of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are renowned in the
earth ?
- The LORD Almighty planned it, to bring low
the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.
- Till your land as along the Nile, O Daughter
of Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor.
- The LORD has stretched out his hand over
the sea and made its kingdoms tremble. He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
that her fortresses be destroyed.
- He said, "No more of your reveling,
O Virgin Daughter of Sidon, now crushed! "Up, cross over to Cyprus; even
there you will find no rest."
- Look at the land of the Babylonians, this
people that is now of no account! The Assyrians have made it a place for desert
creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses
bare and turned it into a ruin.
- Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your fortress
is destroyed !
- At that time Tyre will be forgotten for
seventy years, the span of a king's life. But at the end of these seventy
years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
- "Take up a harp, walk through the city,
O prostitute forgotten; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you
will be remembered."
- At the end of seventy years, the LORD will
deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her
trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.
- Yet her profit and her earnings will be
set apart for the LORD; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits
will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothes.
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