Ezekiel 32

The king of Egypt is like a great animal that swims in rivers

1The LORD spoke to me in the twelfth (12th) year. It was the first day of the twelfth (12th) month. 2‘Son of man’, he said. ‘Make this sad song about Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And say to him,

“You are the strongest among the nations.

You are like the greatest of animals in the seas.

You move about in the rivers

and you hit the water with your feet.

You mix dirt with the clean water.”’

3This is what the LORD God says:

‘I will send a great crowd of people

and they will catch you in their net.

4I will pull you out of the water

and I will throw you on dry ground.

I will let the birds land on you in the field.

I will give your meat to the wild animals. I will fill their stomachs.

5I will cause parts of your body to lie on all the mountains

and they will fill the valleys.

6I will cover the ground with your blood. It will run up to the mountains.

And your meat will fill the deep valleys.

7I will hide the stars and I will make the sky dark.

I will do this when I make you nothing.

I will cover the sun with a cloud

and you will not see the moon.

8I will make the lights in the sky become dark.

Your whole country will become dark.

I will make it dark’, says the LORD God.

9‘I will destroy your nation.

Then many nations that you do not know will become afraid.

10They will think that I will give them trouble.

And their kings will be afraid because I destroyed you.

They will see me shake my sword in front of them.

They will think that I will kill them.

So each of them will be afraid and they will shake.’

11So, this is what the LORD God says.

‘The king of Babylon will attack you.

12His great army will fight against you.

I will give his strong men power to kill your soldiers.

His people are the most cruel of all nations.

They will change Egypt into a poor weak nation.

They will destroy all its armies.

13Egypt’s people have many cows near its great rivers,

but I will destroy them.

No men’s feet will mix dirt with the water any longer.

No animal’s feet will remain to make the water dirty.

14Then I will make the waters quiet.

They will move like oil’, says the LORD God.

15‘I will destroy Egypt.

I will take away all that you have.

I will kill all the people who live there.

Then they will know that I am the LORD.

16They will sing this sad song for Egypt. Women in all nations will sing it. They will sing it for the land of Egypt and its many people.’ This is what the LORD God says.

17In the fifteenth (15th) month of the twelfth (12th) year, the LORD spoke to me.

18‘Son of man’, he said. ‘Be sad and make a loud noise for the many people in Egypt. Send them down to the place of dead people. Send them there with the dead bodies of all the strong nations‘men. 19Tell them that they are no better than any other people. They will all go to that place. They will be with those who are not circumcised. 20The people in Egypt will die with the other soldiers who die. A sword is ready to kill them all. 21Great leaders lie in the home of dead people. They will speak about Egypt and its friends. They will say: “Many men died in the fight. They have come down to lie with all of them. They are with those who are not circumcised.”

22Assyria is there with its whole army. All its men who died in the fight lie there. They lie round it in the home of dead people. 23Their dead bodies are in the deepest parts of that place. Its dead soldiers are all round it. Many armies made people afraid. All their men are now in the country of dead people. Their enemies have killed them.

24Elam is there with all its dead soldiers round it. Its enemy’s swords have killed them all. All the men who made people afraid are down there. They are there with those who are not circumcised. They are ashamed. They are in the place of dead people. 25Elam lies on a bed with all its soldiers round it. Not one of them is circumcised. Swords have killed them all. They will be ashamed because they made people afraid. They did that when they were alive. So I will make their bodies lie among the men who died.

26Meshech and Tubal are there in the home of dead people. The dead bodies of their soldiers are round them. They are all in the home of dead people. Not one of them is circumcised. They made people afraid when they were alive. So men killed them with swords. 27Now they lie with other dead soldiers who were not circumcised. They are in the home of dead people with their arms and their swords under their heads. Their armies made all people very afraid when they marched through the country. But I have punished them because of their sins.

28I will kill you too, Pharaoh. And your dead body will lie with those men. You will lie with men who are not circumcised. You will lie with men whose enemies killed them with swords.

29Edom is there. Its kings and leaders are there. Soldiers killed many of their men with swords. The kings and leaders are with those men. They had great power. But now they lie in the home of dead people. They lie with men who are not circumcised.

30The kings of the north and from Sidon are there. They had great power but they are ashamed. They made men very afraid. But now they lie in the home of dead people.

They are with those that men killed with swords. They are with those dead men who are not circumcised.

31Pharaoh felt sad because men had killed all his soldiers. When he and his army see those other dead men, they will feel better’, says the LORD God.

32‘Pharaoh and his armies will lie among men who are not circumcised. They made men very afraid.

But their dead bodies will lie with other men’s bodies. They will lie with men that enemies’ swords had killed.’