An Oracle Concerning Egypt
The aoracle concerning bEgypt.
Behold, Yahweh is criding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;
The didols of Egypt will shake at His presence,
And the eheart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
2 “So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;
And they will aeach fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,
City against city and kingdom against kingdom.
3 Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied to destruction within them;
And I will confuse their counsel,
So that athey will seek idols and ghosts of the dead
And to mediums and spiritists.
4 Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a acruel master,
And a strong king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.
5 aThe waters from the sea will dry up,
And the river will be parched and dry.
6 The arivers will emit a stench,
The bstreams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;
cThe reeds and rushes will rot away.
7 The bulrushes by the aNile, by the edge of the Nile
And all the sown fields by the Nile
Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.
8 And the afishermen will lament,
And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn,
And those who spread nets on the waters will languish.
9 Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax
And the weavers of white acloth will be ashamed.
10 And the apillars of Egypt will be crushed;
All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.
11 The princes of aZoan are merely ignorant fools;
The counsel of Pharaoh’s wisest counselors has become senseless.
How can you men say to Pharaoh,
“I am a son of the bwise, a son of the kings of old”?
12 Well then, where are your wise men?
Please let them tell you,
And let them understand what Yahweh of hosts
Has acounseled against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have acted as ignorant fools,
The princes of aMemphis are deluded;
Those who are the bcornerstone of her tribes
Have led Egypt astray.
14 Yahweh has mixed within her a spirit of adistortion;
bThey have led Egypt astray in all that it does,
As a cdrunken man strays into his vomit.
15 There will be no work for Egypt
aWhich its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.
Yahweh Will Bless Egypt, Assyria, and Israel
16 In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in adread because of the bwaving of the hand of Yahweh of hosts, which He is going to wave over them. 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it because of the acounsel of Yahweh of hosts which He is counseling against them.