Isaiah 19:1 - 19:15

The oracle concerning Egypt.

Behold, Yahweh is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;

The idols of Egypt will shake at His presence,

And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

“So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians;

And they will each fight against his brother and each against his neighbor,

City against city and kingdom against kingdom.

Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied to destruction within them;

And I will confuse their counsel,

So that they will seek idols and ghosts of the dead

And to mediums and spiritists.

Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master,

And a strong king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.

The waters from the sea will dry up,

And the river will be parched and dry.

The rivers will emit a stench,

The streams of Egypt will thin out and dry up;

The reeds and rushes will rot away.

The bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile

And all the sown fields by the Nile

Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

And the fishermen will lament,

And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn,

And those who spread nets on the waters will languish.

Moreover, the manufacturers of linen made from combed flax

And the weavers of white cloth will be ashamed.

And the pillars of Egypt will be crushed;

All the hired laborers will be grieved in soul.

The princes of Zoan 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 wise, a son of the kings of old”?

Well then, where are your wise men?

Please let them tell you,

And let them understand what Yahweh of hosts

Has counseled against Egypt.

The princes of Zoan have acted as ignorant fools,

The princes of Memphis are deluded;

Those who are the cornerstone of her tribes

Have led Egypt astray.

Yahweh has mixed within her a spirit of distortion;

They have led Egypt astray in all that it does,

As a drunken man strays into his vomit.

There will be no work for Egypt

Which its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.