And word came to me from the Lord:

Son of man, give this message from the Lord God to the prince of Tyre: An ill day for thee, when thy proud heart told thee thou wast a god, enthroned god-fashion in the heart of the sea! Mortal man, thou hast played the god in thy own thoughts.

What if more than a Daniel thou wert for wisdom, no secret hidden from thee?

Skill and craft have brought thee power, lined thy coffers with gold and silver;

and this skill of thine, this pedlar’s empire of thine, have made thee proud of thy own strength.

This doom, then, the Lord God has for thee, man that wouldst play the god:

I mean to embroil thee with foreign foes, a warrior nation as none else, that shall draw sword on that fair creature, thy wisdom, soil thy beauty in the dust!

Dragged down to thy ruin, wounded to thy death, there in the heart of the sea,

wilt thou still boast of thy godhead to the slayer, while his sword ungods thee?

Such my doom is for thee, death at an alien’s hand, the uncircumcised for thy company.

This too: Son of man, sing a dirge over yonder king of Tyre.✻

This be thy message to him from the Lord God: The token, thou, of my considerateness.✻ How wise thou wast, how peerlessly fair,

with all God’s garden to take thy pleasure in! No precious stone but went to thy adorning; sardius, topaz, jasper, chrysolith, onyx, beryl, sapphire, carbuncle and emerald; all of gold was thy fair fashioning. And thy niche✻ was prepared for thee when thou wast created;

a cherub thou shouldst be, thy wings outstretched in protection; there on God’s holy mountain I placed thee, to come and go between the wheels of fire.✻

From the day of thy creation all was perfect in thee, till thou didst prove false;

all these traffickings had made thee false within, and for thy guilt I must expel thee, guardian cherub as thou wert, from God’s mountain; between the wheels of fire thou shouldst walk no longer.

A heart made proud by its own beauty, wisdom ruined through its own dazzling brightness, down to earth I must cast thee, an example for kings to see.

Great guilt of thine, all the sins of thy trafficking, have profaned thy sanctuaries; such a fire I will kindle in the heart of thee as shall be thy undoing, leave thee a heap of dust on the ground for all to gaze at.

None on earth that recognizes thee but shall be dismayed at the sight of thee; only ruin left of thee, for ever vanished and gone.

This too:

Son of man, turn thy regard towards Sidon, and prophesy its doom.

This message give it from the Lord God: Have at thee, Sidon! Battle-field thy territory shall be of my renown! In her, too, my power shall be made known, my sentence executed, my holiness vindicated.

Plague I mean to bring down on her and blood-letting both; the sword everywhere, and wounded men dying in her streets, to prove what power the Lord has.

No more shall the Israelites have scornful enemies round about, thorns and briers to prick and hurt them;✻ they shall know at last what manner of God they serve.

When I restore the scattered race of Israel from its exile, the Lord God says, my holiness shall be vindicated for all the world to see. The land I gave to my servant Jacob shall be thenceforward its home;

securely it shall dwell there, build houses, plant vineyards, fear no attack. It shall see every scornful neighbour punished, and know at last what it is to have the Lord for its God.