Isaiah 23

1An oracle concerning Tyre: Wail, you ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is destroyed, left without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus word has reached them.

2Be silent, you who live on the coast, you whom the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have made rich.

3On many waters came the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; it was her revenue, and she became the marketplace of the nations.

4Be ashamed, Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea: “I have not been in labor or given birth; I have not raised young men or brought up young women.”

5When the report reaches Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report about Tyre.

6Cross over to Tarshish; wail, you who live on the coast!

7Is this your exultant city, whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle in lands far away?

8Who has planned this against Tyre, the giver of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honored of the earth?

9Yahweh of Armies has planned it, to defile the pride of all its glory, to bring into contempt all the honored of the earth.

10Overflow your land like the Nile, Daughter Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore.

11He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has made kingdoms tremble. Yahweh has given a command concerning Canaan, to destroy its strongholds.

12He said, “You will exult no more, you oppressed virgin, Daughter Sidon. Get up, cross over to Cyprus; even there you will find no rest.”

13Look at the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that is no more. Assyria destined it for desert creatures. They set up their siege towers, they stripped its palaces bare, they made it a ruin.

14Wail, you ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is destroyed!

15On that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the life span of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song about the prostitute:

16“Take up a lyre, go around the city, you forgotten prostitute; play the strings well, sing many songs, so that you will be remembered.”

17At the end of seventy years Yahweh will turn his attention to Tyre, and she will return to her prostitute’s wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

18But her profits and her wages will be holy to Yahweh; they will not be stored up or hoarded, for her profits will go to those who live in the presence of Yahweh, to give them plenty to eat and fine clothing.