wearing belts on their waists and flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, the image of Babylonians ¹  whose native land is Chaldea.

They will treat you with hatred, take away all you have labored for, ¹  and leave you naked and bare. Your nakedness will be exposed, just as when you engaged in prostitution and obscene conduct. ² 

Ezekiel will be an object lesson for you; you will do all that he has done. When it happens, then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord.’

For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you clapped your hands, stamped your feet, and rejoiced with intense scorn ¹  over the land of Israel,

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Moab ¹  and Seir say, “Look, the house of Judah is like all the other nations.”

With his horses’ hoofs he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will tumble down to the ground.

They crafted ¹  all your planks out of fir trees from Senir; ²  they took a cedar from Lebanon to make your mast.

The elders of Gebal ¹  and her skilled men were within you, mending cracks; ²  all the ships of the sea and their mariners were within you to trade for your merchandise. ³ 

By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade, you desecrated your sanctuaries. So I drew fire out from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth before the eyes of all who saw you.

“‘No longer will Israel suffer from the sharp briers ¹  or painful thorns of all who surround and scorn them. ²  Then they will know that I am the sovereign Lord.

“Son of man, turn toward ¹  Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.

I will put hooks in your jaws and stick the fish of your waterways to your scales. I will haul you up from the midst of your waterways, and all the fish of your waterways will stick to your scales.

Then all those living in Egypt will know that I am the Lord because they were a reed staff ¹  for the house of Israel;

The water made it grow; underground springs made it grow tall. Rivers flowed all around the place it was planted, while smaller channels watered all the trees of the field. ¹ 

Therefore it grew taller than all the trees of the field; its boughs grew large and its branches grew long, because of the plentiful water in its shoots. ¹ 

I will darken all the lights in the sky over you, and I will darken your land, declares the sovereign Lord.

I will destroy all its cattle beside the plentiful waters; and no human foot will disturb ¹  the waters ²  again, nor will the hooves of cattle disturb them.

When I turn the land of Egypt into desolation and the land is destitute of everything that fills it, when I strike all those who live in it, then they will know that I am the Lord.’

This is a lament; they will chant it. The daughters of the nations will chant it. They will chant it over Egypt and over all her hordes, declares the sovereign Lord.”

Their ¹  graves are located in the remote slopes of the pit. ²  Her assembly is around her grave, all of them struck down by the sword, those who spread terror in the land of the living.