Isaiah 23:1-15
1
A Prophecy About Tyre
An oracle concerning Tyre:
Wail, O ships of Tarshish!
For Tyre is destroyed
and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
word has come to them.
2
Be silent, you people of the island
and you merchants of Sidon,
whom the seafarers have enriched.
3
On the great waters
came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre,
and she became the marketplace of the nations.
4
Be ashamed, O Sidon, and you, O fortress of the sea,
for the sea has spoken:
“I have neither been in labor nor given birth;
I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”
5
When word comes to Egypt,
they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.
6
Cross over to Tarshish;
wail, you people of the island.
7
Is this your city of revelry,
the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
to settle in far-off lands?
8
Who planned this against Tyre,
the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
whose traders are renowned in the earth?
9
The Lord Almighty planned it,
to bring low the pride of all glory
and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.
10
Till your land as along the Nile,
O Daughter of Tarshish,
for you no longer have a harbor.
11
The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
that her fortresses be destroyed.
12
He said, “No more of your reveling,
O Virgin Daughter of Sidon, now crushed!
“Up, cross over to Cyprus;
even there you will find no rest.”
13
Look at the land of the Babylonians,
this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
they stripped its fortresses bare
and turned it into a ruin.
14
Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
your fortress is destroyed!
15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: