The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 23 The Ruin and Restoration of Tyre

 The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 23

The Ruin and Restoration of Tyre

1 The Burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish, for it is desolate, so that there is no house in it, and no one will enter it any more. From the land of Kittim it has been revealed to them.

2 Be silent, you inhabitants of the island, whom the merchants of Sidon have replenished, sailing on the sea.

3 And her provision was the seed of Sychor, which came in with the great waters, the harvest of the Nile; and she was the marketplace of the nations.

4 Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea, the stronghold of the sea, speaks, saying: I have not travailed, nor given birth, nor nursed young men, nor brought up maidens.

5 As with the news of Egypt, so will be the pain when the news of Tyre is heard.

6 Pass over to Tarshish; howl, you inhabitants of the island.

7 Is this your city that used to rejoice? Whose antiquity is from ancient times? For their own feet will carry her away to wander far away.

8 Who has devised this plan against Tyre, the crowned city, whose merchants are princes, and whose traders are the noblest of the earth?

9 The Lord of hosts has devised this plan to debase the pride of all beauty, and to bring low the noblest of the earth.

10 Pass like the Nile through your land, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no longer a belt around you.

11 He stretched out his hand over the sea and troubled the kingdoms; the Lord gave a command against Canaan to destroy its strongholds.

12 He said, "You will never again rejoice, O oppressed virgin, daughter of Sidon: arise, pass over to Kittim, and even there you will have no rest." 

13 Consider the land of the Chaldeans; before that people was a people, Assyria founded it for those who lived in the wilderness; they raised up their strongholds and built their palaces, but now it is utterly destroyed.

14 Howl, you ships of Tarshish, for your strength is destroyed.

15 And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, as the days of a king: and at the end of seventy years Tyre shall be like the song of a harlot.

16 Take up the harp, go about the city, O harlot given over to oblivion; play well, sing, and repeat the melody, that you may be remembered.

17 For at the end of seventy years the Lord will visit Tyre, and she shall return to her prostitute's gain, and shall have commerce with all the kingdoms that are upon the face of the earth.

18 And her merchandise and her prostitute's gain shall be consecrated to the Lord; It shall not be laid up in store, nor shall it be shut up: but her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the Lord, that they may eat sufficiently, and have lasting clothing.