Dual PanelThe city of Tyre will be punished
1This is a message from distant islands about the city of Tyre: Cry, you seagoing ships! Tyre and its houses lie in ruins.
2Mourn in silence, you shop owners of Sidon, you people on the coast. Your sailors crossed oceans, making your city rich.
3Your merchants sailed the seas, making you wealthy by trading with nation after nation. They brought back grain that grew along the Nile.
4Sidon, you are a mighty fortress built along the sea. But you will be disgraced like a married woman who never had children.
5When Egypt hears about Tyre, it will tremble.
6All of you along the coast had better cry and sail far across the ocean.
7Can this be the happy city that has stood for centuries? Its people have spread to distant lands;
8its merchants were kings honoured all over the world. Who planned to destroy Tyre?
9The Lord All-Powerful planned it to bring shame and disgrace to those who are honoured by everyone on earth.
10People of Tyre, your harbour is destroyed! You will have to become farmers just like the Egyptians.
Tyre will be forgotten
11 The Lord's hand has reached across the sea, upsetting the nations. He has given a command to destroy fortresses in the land of Canaan.
12The Lord has said to the people of Sidon, “Your celebrating is over— you are crushed. Even if you escape to Cyprus, you won't find peace.”
13Look what the Assyrians have done to Babylonia! They have attacked, destroying every palace in the land. Now wild animals live among the ruins.
14Not a fortress will be left standing, so tell all the seagoing ships to mourn.
15The city of Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, which is the lifetime of a king. Then Tyre will be like that evil woman in the song:
16You're gone and forgotten, you evil woman! So strut through the town, singing and playing your favourite tune to be remembered again.
17At the end of those seventy years, the Lord will let Tyre get back into business. The city will be like a woman who sells her body to everyone of every nation on earth,
18but none of what is earned will be kept in the city. That money will belong to the Lord, and it will be used to buy more than enough food and good clothes for those who worship the Lord.