The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Prophecy of Ezechiel
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Chapter 29
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It was the tenth year of Sedecias, on the eleventh day of its tenth month, when word came to me from the Lord:
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Son of man, turn thy regard towards Pharao, king of Egypt, and prophesy his and all Egypt’s doom.
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This message give him from the Lord God: Have at thee, Pharao, king of Egypt, great dragon that liest couched between thy streams, boasting that yonder river is thy own, thou art a god, self-created!
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Trust me, I will bridle those jaws of thine, and all the fish in thy river I will fasten to thy scales! Out of the river, fish clinging to scales, I will drag thee,
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and leave thee aground in the desert, and thy fish too. None shall go out to search for thy corpse, or bring it home; carrion it shall be for beast on earth, for bird in heaven,
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and all the citizens of Egypt shall learn my power. This, because thou didst prove a staff of cane to the men of Israel;
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grasped they that staff, it splintered, and there was an arm wounded; leaned they on it, it broke, and their strength gave way under them.

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This doom, then, the Lord God pronounces: For thee, the sword; man nor beast will I spare in thee;
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a lonely desert thou shalt be, till thou hast learned what my power is, thou that wouldst be river’s lord and river’s maker.
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Out upon thee, out upon those streams of thine; a desert Egypt shall be, devastated by the sword, from Syene’s tower to the marches of Ethiopia;
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man nor beast shall set foot in it till it has lain forty years desolate.
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Land of Egypt shall be as the desert lands are, cities of Egypt as the ruined cities are, for forty years uninhabited; and the men of Egypt shall be scattered wide as earth among the nations.

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This too: At the end of forty years I will bring the Egyptians back from their countries of exile,
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restore them from banishment, and in Phatures, the land of their birth, give them a home once more; there they shall be a kingdom of little account.
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Least of the kingdoms Egypt shall be, no more hold up its head among the nations, too weak for empire now.
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No more shall it raise hopes among the men of Israel, and bring upon them the guilt of finding a refuge there; they shall learn that I, the Lord, am their God.

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It was on the first day of the twenty-seventh year that word came to me from the Lord:
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Son of man, here is great drudgery king Nabuchodonosor of Babylon has given his men in the assault upon Tyre; every head worn bald, every shoulder smooth, by the burdens they carried! A thankless service it was they did me there, he and his army;
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but now, says the Lord God, I will make use of Egypt to pay Nabuchodonosor his wages; all its great wealth he shall have, spoil for his spoiling, plunder for his plundering, and so his men shall have their reward.
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He has fought my battles, and Egypt shall be his recompense, the Lord God says.
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When that day comes, new life shall spring from the stock of Israel, and to the men of Israel thou shalt speak with unhampered utterance, to attest my divine power.