Isaiah 23 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

An Oracle Concerning Tyre and Sidon

Isa 23:1The oracle concerning Tyre.
Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor!
From the land of Cyprus[fn]
it is revealed to them.

Isa 23:2

Isa 23:2Be still, O inhabitants of the coast;
the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you.

Isa 23:3

Isa 23:3And on many waters
your revenue was the grain of Shihor,
the harvest of the Nile;
you were the merchant of the nations.

Isa 23:4

Isa 23:4Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken,
the stronghold of the sea, saying:
“I have neither labored nor given birth,
I have neither reared young men
nor brought up young women.”

Isa 23:5

Isa 23:5When the report comes to Egypt,
they will be in anguish[fn] over the report about Tyre.

Isa 23:6

Isa 23:6Cross over to Tarshish;
wail, O inhabitants of the coast!

Isa 23:7

Isa 23:7Is this your exultant city
whose origin is from days of old,
whose feet carried her
to settle far away?

Isa 23:8

Isa 23:8Who has purposed this
against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants were princes,
whose traders were the honored of the earth?

Isa 23:9

Isa 23:9The LORD of hosts has purposed it,
to defile the pompous pride of all glory,[fn]
to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

Isa 23:10

Isa 23:10Cross over your land like the Nile,
O daughter of Tarshish;
there is no restraint anymore.

Isa 23:11

Isa 23:11He has stretched out his hand over the sea;
he has shaken the kingdoms;
the LORD has given command concerning Canaan
to destroy its strongholds.

Isa 23:12

Isa 23:12And he said:
“You will no more exult,
O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon;
arise, cross over to Cyprus,
even there you will have no rest.”

Isa 23:13

Isa 23:13Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not;[fn] Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.

Isa 23:14

Isa 23:14Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
for your stronghold is laid waste.

Isa 23:15

Isa 23:15In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days[fn] of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

Isa 23:16

Isa 23:16“Take a harp;
go about the city,
O forgotten prostitute!
Make sweet melody;
sing many songs,
that you may be remembered.”

Isa 23:17

Isa 23:17At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

Isa 23:18

Isa 23:18Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(23:1)

Hebrew Kittim; also verse 12

(23:5)

Hebrew they will have labor pains

(23:9)

The Hebrew words for glory and hosts sound alike

(23:13)

Or that has become nothing

(23:15)

Or lifetime

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