The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Prophecy of Ezechiel
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Chapter 26
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In king Sedecias’ eleventh year, on the first day of the … month, word came to me from the Lord:
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Son of man, what was the cry of Tyre over Jerusalem? Joy, joy, the toll-gate✻ of the world has been broken down! It is mine now; I shall grow fat on Jerusalem’s ruin!
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This doom the Lord God pronounces: Have at thee, Tyre! I mean to bring hordes of nations marching on thee, like wave upon wave of the sea.
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Walls of Tyre they shall break down, and towers of her overthrow; all the soil I will scrape away from her, and leave her bare rock,
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doom her to be but an island where fisher-folk dry their nets; I, the Lord God, will give her over as a prey to all the nations.
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Daughter-towns that stand in her territory shall be put to the sword, and learn my power at last.
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Here is Nabuchodonosor of Babylon, the Lord says, a king that has kings for his vassals, marching from the north with horse and chariot, with his knights and all his retinue, a great army of men,
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to put thy daughter-towns to the sword, compass thee with siege-works and raise a mound about thee. A barrier of shields he will raise under thy walls,
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ply engine and battering-ram against them, and bring down thy towers with grappling-irons.
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Of horses such a company, as shall cover thee all with dust; with cries of horsemen and rattle of chariot-wheels entering thy gates, thy walls shall ring again like the walls of a breached city.
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Never a street of thine but must echo with hoofs; butchered thy citizens shall be, thy fair pillars cast down,
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thy wealth plundered, thy merchandise taken for spoil. Down shall come walls, palaces totter in ruins; stone and timber and mortar of thine shall strew the seas.
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Hushed the murmur of thy songs; never more the sound of harp shall be heard in thee.
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Bare rock thou shalt be, for fisher-folk to dry their nets on; there shall be no building thee again, says the Lord God.
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This too: The very isles shall echo with the crash of thy fall, ring with the cries of the wounded dying in thy streets.
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Down from their thrones they shall come, all the lords of the sea-harbours, throw robe aside, broidered coats lay down; wrapped in dismay they sit on the bare ground, at the sudden fall of thee bewildered and amazed.
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And thus they shall sing thy dirge: What a doom was thine, sea-built city, far renowned! Mistress of the seas, mother of a race that all held in dread!
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Day of terror, that affrights the very ships, fills the islands with alarm, to see no ships leave thy harbour now!
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This too: Desolate thou shalt be, thy place among the lost cities; higher and higher yet the fathomless ocean shall rise about thee, swallowing thee up under its waters.
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Among the dead thy place is, that go down into the grave, where time is not; entombed with those other ruined cities in the depths of earth, tenanted no longer. The living world shall see the glory of my presence,
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but thou shalt have no part in it, thou shalt no longer be; who searches for thee will search evermore in vain, says the Lord God.✻
