Word against Egypt

29 On the twelfth day of the tenth month in the tenth year, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, ² “Son of man, look toward Pharaoh king of Egypt, and speak against him and against all Egypt. ³ Tell them, ‘The Lord God says, “I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt. You are the big animal that lies in his rivers and says, ‘The Nile is mine. I made it.’ ⁴ I will put hooks in your mouth. I will make the fish of your rivers stick to your hard skin. And I will pull you up out of your rivers, with the fish that stick to your hard skin. ⁵ Then I will leave you in the desert, you and all the fish of your rivers. You will fall on the open field, and not be gathered or buried. I will feed you to the wild animals of the earth and to the birds of the sky. ⁶ Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. They have been only a weak piece of river grass to the people of Israel. ⁷ When they took hold of you with their hands, you broke and tore all their shoulders. When they rested on you, you broke and hurt their backs.” ⁸ So the Lord God says, “I will bring a sword against you and kill your people and animals. ⁹ And the land of Egypt will be destroyed and laid waste. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

“Because you said, ‘The Nile is mine, and I made it,’ ¹⁰ I am against you and against your rivers. I will destroy Egypt and make it nothing but waste from Migdol to Syene and even to the land of Ethiopia. ¹¹ No foot of man or animal will pass through it, and no one will live there for forty years. ¹² I will make the land of Egypt a waste among the lands which are laid waste. Her cities will be a waste for forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will divide the Egyptians among the nations and spread them out among the lands.”

¹³ ’For the Lord God says, “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were divided. ¹⁴ I will bring them back to Egypt and let them live in Pathros, the land they came from. And there they will be a small nation. ¹⁵ It will be the least of the nations, and will never lift itself up above other nations again. I will make them so small that they will never rule over the nations. ¹⁶ It will never again be a hope for the people of Israel. They will remember their sin in turning to Egypt for help in the past. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.”’”

King Nebuchadnezzar Will Take Egypt

¹⁷ On the first day of the first month in the twenty-seventh year, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, ¹⁸ “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army work hard against Tyre. Every head lost its hair, and skin was rubbed off every shoulder. But he and his army did not receive anything from Tyre to pay for the work he had done against it.” ¹⁹ So the Lord God says, “I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And he will carry away her riches. He will take all her good things, and they will be pay for his army. ²⁰ I have given him the land of Egypt for the work he has done, because he and his army worked for Me,” says the Lord God.

²¹ “On that day I will make the people of Israel strong, and give you the power to speak among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”