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Isaiah 23
On Tyre and Sidon
1 Oracle on Tyre: Howl, ships of Tarshish,[*a] for your fortress has been destroyed. They learn the news on their way from the land of Kittim.[*b]
2 Be struck dumb, you inhabitants of the coast, you merchants of Sidon, whose goods travelled over the sea,
3 over wide oceans. The grain of Nile, the harvest of the river, formed her revenues, as she marketed it throughout the world.
4 Blush, Sidon, for thus speaks the sea, ‘I have not laboured nor given birth, not reared young men nor brought up young girls’.
5 When the Egyptians learn the fate of Tyre, they will be appalled.
6 Take ship for Tarshish, howl, you inhabitants of the coast.
7 Is this your joyful city founded far back in the past? Whose footsteps led her abroad to found her own colonies?
8 Who took this decision against imperial Tyre, whose traders were princes, whose merchants, the great ones of the world?
9 Yahweh Sabaoth took this decision to humble the pride of all her beauty and humiliate the great ones of the world.
10 Till the soil, daughter of Tarshish, the harbour is no more,
11 He has stretched his hand over the sea to overthrow its kingdoms; Yahweh has ordained the destruction of the fortresses of Canaan.
12 He has said: Rejoice no more, ravished one, virgin daughter of Sidon. Get up and take ship for Kittim; no respite for you there, either.
13 Look at the land of Kittim…They have set up towers. They have demolished its bastions and reduced it to ruins.
14 Howl, ships of Tarshish, for your fortress has been destroyed.
The subjection of Tyre
15 That day, Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years. But in the reign of another king, at the end of the seventy years, Tyre will become like the whore in the song:
16 Take your lyre, walk the town, forgotten whore. Play your sweetest, sing your songs again, to make them remember you.
17 At the end of the seventy years Yahweh will visit Tyre. Once again she will begin to receive the pay for her whoring. She will play the whore with all the kingdoms on the surface of the earth.
18 But her profits and wages will be dedicated to Yahweh and not stored or hoarded. Her profits will go to buy abundant food and splendid clothes for those who live in the presence of Yahweh.