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²Mortal, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; ³speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God:
I am against you,
   Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon sprawling
   in the midst of its channels,
saying, ‘My Nile is my own;
   I made it for myself.’
⁴ I will put hooks in your jaws,
   and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales.
I will draw you up from your channels,
   with all the fish of your channels
   sticking to your scales.
⁵ I will fling you into the wilderness,
   you and all the fish of your channels;
you shall fall in the open field,
   and not be gathered and buried.
To the animals of the earth and to the birds of the air
   I have given you as food.
⁶ Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know
   that I am the Lord
because you^* were a staff of reed
   to the house of Israel;
⁷ when they grasped you with the hand, you broke,
   and tore all their shoulders;
and when they leaned on you, you broke,
   and made all their legs unsteady.^*

8 Therefore, thus says the Lord God: I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you human being and animal; ⁹and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.

Because you^* said, ‘The Nile is mine, and I made it’, ¹⁰therefore, I am against you, and against your channels, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia.^{* 11}No human foot shall pass through it, and no animal foot shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited for forty years. ¹²I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolated countries; and her cities shall be a desolation for forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries.

13 Further, thus says the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered; ¹⁴and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt, and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin; and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. ¹⁵It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and never again exalt itself above the nations; and I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations. ¹⁶The Egyptians^* shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel; they will recall their iniquity, when they turned to them for aid. Then they shall know that I am the Lord God.

Babylonia Will Plunder Egypt

17 In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁸Mortal, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labour hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labour that he had expended against it. ¹⁹Therefore, thus says the Lord God: I will give the land of Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon; and he shall carry off its wealth and despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army. ²⁰I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he laboured, because they worked for me, says the Lord God.

21 On that day I will cause a horn to sprout up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.