Isaiah 23
Open in the reader1This is the burden against The-Rock: Wail, O ships of Far-Shore, for The-Rock is laid waste, without house or harbor. Word has reached them from the land of Kittim.
2Be silent, O dwellers of the coastland, you merchants of Sidon, whose traders have crossed the Sea.
3On the great waters came the grain of Dark-Water; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of The-Rock; she was the merchant of the nations.
4Be ashamed, O Sidon, the stronghold of the Sea, for the Sea has spoken: “I have not been in labor or given birth. I have not raised young men or brought up young women.”
5When the report reaches Two-Straits, they will writhe in agony over the news of The-Rock.
6Cross over to Far-Shore; wail, O inhabitants of the coastland!
7Is this your jubilant city, whose origin is from antiquity, whose feet have taken her to settle far away?
8Who planned this against The-Rock, the bestower of crowns, whose traders are princes, whose merchants are renowned on the earth?
9He-Who-Is of Hosts planned it, to defile all its glorious beauty, to disgrace all the renowned of the earth.
10Cultivate your land like the Nile, O Daughter of Far-Shore; there is no longer a harbor.
11He-Who-Is has stretched out His hand over the Sea; He has made kingdoms tremble. He-Who-Is has given a command that the strongholds of Humbled be destroyed.
12He said, “You shall rejoice no more, O oppressed Virgin Daughter of Sidon. Get up and cross over to Kittim— even there you will find no rest.”
13Look at the land of the Kasdites — a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.
14Wail, O ships of Far-Shore, for your harbor has been destroyed!
15At that time The-Rock will be forgotten for seventy years—the span of a king’s life. But at the end of seventy years, it will happen to The-Rock as in the song of the harlot:
16“Take up your harp, stroll through the city, O forgotten harlot. Make sweet melody, sing many a song, so you will be remembered.”
17And at the end of seventy years, He-Who-Is will restore The-Rock. Then she will return to hire as a prostitute and sell herself to all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.
18Yet her profits and wages will be set apart to He-Who-Is; they will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live before He-Who-Is, for abundant food and fine clothing.