Study Desk

Into his right hand comes the lot for Yerushalayim, to set up battering rams, give the order for slaughter, raise a shout, set battering rams against the gates, build siege ramps and erect watchtowers.

In you, one commits an abomination with his neighbor's wife; another commits some lewd act defiling his daughter-in-law; still another humbles his sister, his own father's daughter.

"Human being, write down today's date; because on this very day the king of Bavel has begun his attack on Yerushalayim.

He will pound your walls with his battering-rams and break down your towers with his axes.

His horses are so many that their dust will cover you. The thunder of cavalry, wagons and chariots will shake your walls, as he enters your gates, like men storming a city through a breach.

With the hoofs of his horses he will trample your streets. He will put your people to the sword and pull to the ground your massive standing-stones.

"Human being, N'vukhadretzar king of Bavel had his army mount a massive expedition against Tzor; [the loads of dirt they carried] made every head bald and every shoulder raw; yet neither he nor his army derived any benefit from Tzor out of this expedition against it.

Therefore Adonai Elohim says, ‘I will give the land of Egypt to N'vukhadretzar king of Bavel. He will carry off its riches, take its spoil and its prey; and these will be the wages for his army.

I am giving him the land of Egypt as his wages for which he worked, because they were working for me,' says Adonai Elohim .

He and his people, the most barbarous of the nations, will be brought in to ravage the land. They will unsheathe their swords against Egypt and fill the land with corpses.

Therefore Adonai Elohim says this: ‘I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt. I will break his arms, both the sound one and the broken one, and I will make the sword fall from his hand.

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Bavel and put my sword in his hand; but I will break the arms of Pharaoh; he will groan like a man mortally wounded.

"Human being, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes: ‘Whom are you like in your greatness?

"Therefore here is what Adonai Elohim says: ‘Because you are so tall, because he has lifted his crown above the leafy boughs, because he has grown so arrogant about his height,

I am handing him over to the mightiest of the nations, who will certainly deal with him as his wickedness deserves; I reject him.

Foreigners, the most barbarous of the nations, will destroy him and leave him lying where he is. His branches will lie fallen on the mountains and in the valleys, his boughs will lie broken in all the rivers of the land, and all the peoples of the earth will withdraw from his shade and leave him.

All the birds will settle on his fallen trunk, and all the wild animals will be on his branches.

At the sound of his fall I made the nations shake, when I hurled him down to Sh'ol with those who descend to the pit. All the trees of ‘Eden, the pick of the best in the L'vanon, all that take up water, were consoled in the underworld.

They descended with him to Sh'ol to those who were killed by the sword, to those who were his fighting arm, those among the nations who lived in his shade.

Which of the trees of ‘Eden was your equal in glory or size? Yet you will be brought down to the underworld along with the trees of ‘Eden. You will lie there among the uncircumcised, with those killed by the sword. This is Pharaoh and his hordes,' says Adonai Elohim ."