Isaiah 23:1-14

The Fall of Tyre

¹The pronouncement concerning Tyre:

Wail, you ships of Tarshish,

For Tyre is destroyed, without house or harbor;

It is reported to them from the land of Cyprus.

2Be silent, you inhabitants of the coastland,

You merchants of Sidon;

Your messengers crossed the sea

3And were on many waters.

The grain of the Nile, the harvest of the River was her revenue;

And she was the market of nations.

4Be ashamed, Sidon,

For the sea speaks, the stronghold of the sea, saying,

“I have neither been in labor nor given birth,

I have neither brought up young men nor raised virgins.”

5When the report reaches Egypt,

They will be in anguish over the report of Tyre.

6Pass over to Tarshish;

Wail, you inhabitants of the coastland.

7Is this your jubilant city,

Whose origin is from antiquity,

Whose feet used to bring her to colonize distant places?

8Who has planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,

Whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?

9The Lord of armies has planned it, to defile the pride of all beauty,

To despise all the honored of the earth.

10Overflow your land like the Nile, you daughter of Tarshish,

There is no more restraint.

11He has stretched His hand out over the sea,

He has made the kingdoms tremble;

The Lord has given a command concerning Canaan to demolish its strongholds.

12He has said, “You shall not be jubilant anymore, you crushed virgin daughter of Sidon.

Arise, pass over to Cyprus; even there you will find no rest.”

¹³Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people that did not exist; Assyria allocated it for desert creatures—they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

14Wail, you ships of Tarshish,

For your stronghold is destroyed.