Isaiah 19:4-10

The Message

^2-4 God says, “I’ll make Egyptian fight Egyptian,
    brother fight brother, neighbor fight neighbor,
City fight city, kingdom fight kingdom—
    anarchy and chaos and killing!
I’ll knock the wind out of the Egyptians.
    They won’t know coming from going.
They’ll go to their god-idols for answers;
    they’ll conjure ghosts and hold séances, desperate for answers.
But I’ll turn the Egyptians
    over to a tyrant most cruel.
I’ll put them under the rule of a mean, merciless king.”
    Decree of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

^5-10 The River Nile will dry up,
    the riverbed baked dry in the sun.
The canals will become stagnant and stink,
    every stream touching the Nile dry up.
River vegetation will rot away
    the banks of the Nile-baked clay,
The riverbed hard and smooth,
    river grasses dried up and gone with the wind.
Fishermen will complain
    that the fishing’s been ruined.
Textile workers will be out of work, all weavers
    and workers in linen and cotton and wool
Dispirited, depressed in their forced idleness—
    everyone who works for a living, jobless.