The Lord will punish the people of Egypt
1The Lord was angry
when He talked about Egypt.
When the Lord rides on a fast cloud
and He comes to Egypt,
the gods of Egypt tremble
and the people of Egypt become afraid.
2The Lord says:
‘I will make
the Egyptians angry with each other
and they will go to war_against their own people.
Brother will fight against brother,
and neighbour against neighbour.
One city will go
to war_against another city,
and one part of the land will
go to war_against
another part of the land.
3The Egyptian people
will not know what to do,
and I will make all their plans fail.
They will ask their gods what to do,
and they will listen to mediums,
spiritists and fortune-tellers.
4I will give the people of Egypt to a cruel king,
and he will rule over them.
They will not know what to do.’
This is what the Lord
who rules over all says.
5There will be no more water in the Nile River.
6The channels will stink
when there is no water and the reeds
and the long grass will become dry.
7The plants along the Nile River will die
where the river flows into the sea.
Everything that the people
have sowed along the river
will become dry. The wind will
blow it away and it will disappear.
8The people who catch fish with hooks
and nets in the Nile River will cry and mourn,
and the fishermen will die
because they will have no food to eat.
9The people who work with flax,
and comb it to make linen,
will have no flax to work with.
10The people who weave cloth
to make clothes
will just sit and do nothing.
The people who should work will have no money.
11The officials in the city of Zoan,
the advisors of Pharaoh, are foolish,
and they do not help Pharaoh to decide what is right.
They can not tell Pharaoh that they are wise
and that they are children of kings of long ago.
12There are no wise people in Egypt,
and they can not tell Pharaoh
what the Lord who rules over all wants to do with Egypt.
13The officials of the cities of Zoan
and Memphis are foolish,
and they do not know what to do.
They are the leaders of tribes,
but they made the people of Egypt do wrong.
14It is the Lord who has confused the officials,
and the officials have told the Egyptians to do wrong.
The Egyptians fall to the ground
like drunk people in their vomit.
15The Egyptians do not know what to do.
Their leaders and the slaves don't know.
The Egyptians and Assyrians will serve the Lord
16On that day the Egyptians will be afraid like women. They will fear and tremble when the Lord who rules over all starts to punish them. 17The Egyptians will be afraid of the people of Judah, and they will fear when people tell them about the land_of_Judah. The Egyptians will be afraid when they hear what the Lord who rules over all wants to do with them.
18On that day the people of 5 cities in Egypt will speak in the Hebrew language and when they promise something, they will say that the Lord who rules over all is their Witness. The name of one of these cities will be the City of the Sun.
19On that day there will be an altar for the Lord in Egypt and on the border of Egypt there will be a monument for the Lord. 20This will help the people of Egypt to remember that the land belongs to the Lord who rules over all. When the Egyptians suffer because other people oppress them, the Lord will send someone to save them and He will help them and free them. 21The Lord will show the Egyptians who He is and they will know Him. They will sacrifice animals and meal-offerings to Him. They will promise things to the Lord and they will do them. 22The Lord will punish the Egyptians, but that punishment will heal them. They will turn to God and live as He wants. He will listen when they pray and He will heal them.
23On that day there will be a road from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians will go to Assyria. They will all serve the Lord. 24On that day the Israelites will also be as important as the Egyptians and the Assyrians and the Lord will bless all the people on earth. 25The Lord who rules over all will bless them and say: ‘All will be well with my people Egypt, all will be well with Assyria, the land that I made, and all will be well with Israel that belongs to Me.’
