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The City of Tyre Will Be Punished

23 (A) This is a message from distant islands about the city of Tyre:[a]

Cry, you seagoing ships![b]
Tyre and its houses
    lie in ruins.[c]
Mourn in silence,
you shop owners of Sidon,[d]
    you people on the coast.
Your sailors crossed oceans,
    making your city rich.
Your merchants sailed the seas,
making you wealthy by trading
    with nation after nation.
They brought back grain
    that grew along the Nile.[e]
Sidon, you are a mighty fortress
    built along the sea.
But you will be disgraced
like a married woman
    who never had children.[f]

When Egypt hears about Tyre,
    it will tremble.
All of you along the coast
had better cry and sail
    far across the ocean.[g]
Can this be the happy city
    that has stood for centuries?
Its people have spread
    to distant lands;
its merchants were kings
    honored all over the world.
Who planned to destroy Tyre?
The Lord All-Powerful planned it
    to bring shame and disgrace
to those who are honored
    by everyone on earth.
10 People of Tyre,[h]
    your harbor is destroyed!
You will have to become farmers
    just like the Egyptians.[i]

Tyre Will Be Forgotten

11 The Lord's hand has reached
across the sea,
    upsetting the nations.
He has given a command
to destroy fortresses
    in the land of Canaan.
12 The Lord has said
    to the people of Sidon,
“Your celebrating is over—
    you are crushed.
Even if you escape to Cyprus,
    you won't find peace.”

13 Look what the Assyrians have done to Babylonia! They have attacked, destroying every palace in the land. Now wild animals live among the ruins.[j] 14 Not a fortress will be left standing, so tell all the seagoing ships[k] to mourn.

15 The city of Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years, which is the lifetime of a king. Then Tyre will be like that evil woman in the song:

16 You're gone and forgotten,
    you evil woman!
So strut through the town,
    singing and playing
your favorite tune
    to be remembered again.

17 At the end of those 70 years, the Lord will let Tyre get back into business. The city will be like a woman who sells her body to everyone of every nation on earth, 18 but none of what is earned will be kept in the city. That money will belong to the Lord, and it will be used to buy more than enough food and good clothes for those who worship the Lord.

The Earth Will Be Punished

24 The Lord is going to twist the earth out of shape and turn it into a desert. Everyone will be scattered, including ordinary people and priests, slaves and slave owners, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, the rich and the poor. The earth will be stripped bare and left that way. This is what the Lord has promised.

The earth wilts away;
its mighty leaders melt
    to nothing.[l]
The earth is polluted
    because its people
disobeyed the laws of God,
breaking their agreement
    that was to last forever.

The earth is under a curse;
its people are dying out
    because of their sins.
Grapevines have dried up:
    wine is almost gone—
mournful sounds are heard
    instead of joyful shouts.

No one plays tambourines
    or stringed instruments;
all noisy celebrating
    has come to an end.
They no longer sing
as they drink their wine,
    and it tastes sour.

10 Towns are crushed and in chaos;
    houses are locked tight.
11 Happy times have disappeared
    from the earth,
and people shout in the streets,
    “We're out of wine!”
12 Cities are destroyed;
    their gates are torn down.
13 Nations will be stripped bare,
like olive trees or vineyards
    after the harvest season.

Praise the God of Justice

14 People in the west shout;
they joyfully praise
    the majesty of the Lord.
15 And so, everyone in the east
    and those on the islands
should praise the Lord,
    the God of Israel.
16 From all over the world
songs of praise are heard
    for the God of justice.[m]
But I feel awful,
    terribly miserable.
Can anyone be trusted?
    So many are treacherous!

There's No Escape

17 Terror, traps, and pits
    are waiting for everyone.
18 If you are terrified and run,
    you will fall into a pit;
if you crawl out of the pit,
    you will get caught in a trap.

The sky has split apart
    like a window thrown open.
The foundations of the earth
    have been shaken;
19 the earth is shattered,
    ripped to pieces.
20 It staggers and shakes
like a drunkard
    or a hut in a windstorm.
It is burdened down with sin;
the earth will fall,
    never again to get up.

21 On that day the Lord
    will punish the powers
in the heavens[n]
    and the kings of the earth.
22 He will put them in a pit
    and keep them prisoner.
Then later on,
    he will punish them.
23 Both the moon and sun will
    be embarrassed and ashamed.
The Lord All-Powerful will rule
    on Mount Zion in Jerusalem,
where he will show its rulers
    his wonderful glory.

A Prayer of Thanks to God

25 You, Lord, are my God!
    I will praise you
for doing the wonderful things
you had planned and promised
    since ancient times.
You have destroyed the fortress
of our enemies,
    leaving their city in ruins.
Nothing in that foreign city
    will ever be rebuilt.
Now strong and cruel nations
    will fear and honor you.

You have been a place of safety
for the poor and needy
    in times of trouble.
Brutal enemies pounded us
    like a heavy rain
or the heat of the sun at noon,
    but you were our shelter.
Those wild foreigners struck
    like scorching desert heat.
But you were like a cloud,
    protecting us from the sun.
You kept our enemies from singing
    songs of victory.

The Lord Has Saved Us

On this mountain
    the Lord All-Powerful
will prepare for all nations
    a feast of the finest foods.
Choice wines and the best meats
    will be served.
Here the Lord will strip away
the burial clothes
    that cover the nations.
(B) The Lord All-Powerful
will destroy the power of death
    and wipe away all tears.
No longer will his people
be insulted everywhere.
    The Lord has spoken!

At that time, people will say,
“The Lord has saved us!
    Let's celebrate.
We waited and hoped—
    now our God is here.”
10 (C) The powerful arm of the Lord
    will protect this mountain.

The Moabites will be put down
and trampled on like straw
    in a pit of manure.
11 They will struggle to get out,
but God will humiliate them
    no matter how hard they try.[o]
12 The walls of their fortresses
will be knocked down
    and scattered in the dirt.

Footnotes

  1. 23.1 Tyre: A fortress city built on an island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of what is now Lebanon.
  2. 23.1 seagoing ships: See the note at 2.16.
  3. 23.1 Tyre … ruins: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
  4. 23.2 Sidon: A coastal city just north of Tyre.
  5. 23.3 along the Nile: The Hebrew text has “grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile,” but Shihor is probably a name for a region near the lower part of the Nile.
  6. 23.4 children: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
  7. 23.6 far across the ocean: The Hebrew text has “to Tarshish,” probably meaning a long distance.
  8. 23.10 People of Tyre: The Hebrew text has “the people of Tarshish,” which stands for the colonies of Tyre.
  9. 23.10 Egyptians: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text of verse 10.
  10. 23.13 ruins: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text of verse 13.
  11. 23.14 seagoing ships: See the note at 2.16.
  12. 24.4 its … to nothing: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
  13. 24.16 God of justice: Or “people who do right.”
  14. 24.21 the powers in the heavens: In ancient times the stars were thought of as powerful spiritual beings, and sometimes they stood for pagan gods.
  15. 25.11 no matter … try: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.

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