Ezekiel 26

¹ In the eleventh year, on the first of the month,[*a] the word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows:

² ‘Son of man, since Tyre has jeered at Jerusalem, “Aha! It is shattered, that gate of nations; it is opening to me; its wealth is ruined”,

³ very well, the Lord Yahweh says this: Now, Tyre, I set myself against you. I mean to cause many nations to surge against you like the sea and its waves.

⁴ They will destroy the walls of Tyre, they will demolish her towers; I will sweep away her dust and leave her a naked rock.

⁵ She will be a drying-ground in mid-ocean for fishing nets. For I have spoken – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks – she will be the prey of the nations.

⁶ As for her daughters on the mainland, these will be put to the sword, and everyone will learn that I am Yahweh.

⁷ For the Lord Yahweh says this. From the North, I am sending Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, king of kings, against Tyre with horses and chariots and horsemen, a horde of many races.

⁸ He will put your daughters on the mainland to the sword. He will build siege-works against you, cast up a mound against you, raise a siege-tower against you;

⁹ he will break down your walls with his battering-rams, and demolish your towers with his siege-engines.[*b]

¹⁰ His horses are so many their dust will hide you. Noise of his horsemen and his chariots and wagons will make your walls tremble as he rides through your gates like a man entering a conquered city.

¹¹ His horses’ hoofs will trample through your streets; he will put your people to the sword, and throw your massive pillars to the ground.

¹² Your wealth will be seized, your merchandise looted, your walls razed, your luxurious houses shattered, your stones, your timbers, your very dust, thrown into the sea.

¹³ I will stop your music and songs; the sound of your harps will not be heard again.

¹⁴ I will reduce you to a naked rock, and make you into a drying-ground for fishing nets, never to be rebuilt; for I, Yahweh, have spoken – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.

¹⁵ The Lord Yahweh says this to Tyre: When they hear of your fall, the groans of your wounded and the havoc inside your walls, will not the islands shake?

¹⁶ The rulers of the sea will all get off their thrones, lay aside their cloaks and take off their embroidered robes. Dressed in terror they will sit on the ground unable to stop trembling, terrified at your fate.

¹⁷ ‘They will raise a dirge and say to you: “You are destroyed then, swept from the seas, city of pride, you who were mighty on the sea, you and your citizens, who used to terrorise the continent far and near.

¹⁸ Now the islands are trembling on the day of your fall; the islands of the sea are terrified by your end.”

¹⁹ ‘For the Lord Yahweh says this: ‘When I make you as desolate as any depopulated city, when I bring up the deep against you and the ocean covers you,

²⁰ I will cast you down with those who go down to the pit, down to the men of old; I will make you live in the regions underground, in the eternal solitudes, with those who go down to the pit, so that you can never come back and be restored to the land of the living.

²¹ I will make you an object of terror; you will not exist. People will look for you and never find you again – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.’