Ezekiel 28
1 [Then] Yahweh gave me another message. [He said]:
THE word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,
2 “You human, give to the king of Tyre this message from [me], Yahweh the Lord: ‘You have very proudly claimed, “I am a god! I sit on a throne of a god [in a city on an island] in the sea!” You boast that you are a god; but you are only a man, not a god.
Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 [You think that] you are wiser than Daniel was, [and you think that] you can understand every secret.
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4 By being wise and understanding [a lot], you have become [very] rich; you have acquired much gold and silver for your treasuries.
With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5 [Yes, it is true that] by trading wisely, you have been enabled to become very rich, and because you are rich, you have become very proud.
By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6 Therefore, this is what Yahweh the Lord says: “Because you think that you are as wise as a god,
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7 I will [now] bring a foreign [army] to attack your [country], an army that causes other nations to be terrified. They will pull out their swords to strike you, [you who think that] [IRO] you have marvelous/great wisdom, and they will destroy all your beautiful things.
Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8 They will bring you down to your grave; you will die violently like [MET] those who died in the sea.
They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9 Then you will certainly not [RHQ] say to those who are killing you, 'I am a god!' [because they will know that] you are not a god; you are only a man.
Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10 You will die like other people who are unacceptable to me die, killed by foreigners.” [That will surely happen because] I, Yahweh, have said it.’”
Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
11 Yahweh also gave me this message:
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
12 “You human, sing a sad/funeral song about the king of Tyre. Say to him, ‘This is what Yahweh the Lord says: [“You thought that] [IRO] you were completely perfect, extremely wise and handsome.
Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 You [had a wonderful life, as though] you were in my [beautiful] garden in Eden. Your [clothes] were decorated with many [HYP] kinds of very valuable stones— ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onyx, jasper, turquoise, and beryl [stones]. Those stones were set/placed in gold [mountings]. They were prepared for you on the day that you were born.
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 I appointed [DOU] you to be like [MET] a strong angel to guard the people. [It was as though I put] you on my holy mountain, and you walked among fiery stones.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 You were completely good in all that you did, from the day that you were created/born, until you [started to] do wicked things.
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 [Then] you became busy trading things, and you started to act violently, and you sinned. So I caused you to be disgraced; and the angel who was guarding you forced you to leave my holy mountain, forced you to leave your place among those fiery stones.
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 You were extremely proud because you were very handsome. Because you loved beautiful things, you did things that wise people do not do. [So] I threw you to the ground, and allowed [other] kings who saw you to laugh at you.
Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 By committing many sins and by trading things dishonestly, you caused your places of worship to become unacceptable to me. So I caused a fire [to burn down your city]. [Your city] was burned completely; the people who were watching it saw that only ashes remained on the ground.
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19 All the people who knew what your [city was like previously] were appalled. Now [your city] has disappeared, and it will not exist any more.”’”
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20 [Then] Yahweh gave me another message. [He said],
Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
21 “You human, turn toward Sidon [city], and declare the terrible things that will happen to it.
Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22 Give [the people of Sidon] this message from [me], Yahweh the Lord: ‘I am your enemy, [you people of] Sidon, and by what I do to you, I will reveal that I am very great/glorious. When I punish you and reveal that I am holy, everyone who is watching that will know that it is I, Yahweh, [who have the power to do what I say that I will do].
And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23 I will send a plague upon you, and I will send [enemies to come and] kill [MTY] you in your streets. They will attack you from every direction, and your people will be slaughtered inside the walls of your city. Then everyone will know that I, Yahweh, [have the power to do what I say that I will do].'
For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the Lord.
24 No longer will those who live near you people of Israel [hurt you] like [MET] painful briers and sharp thorns [hurt people]. And then the Israeli people will know that I, Yahweh, [have the power to do what I say that I will do].”
And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord God.
25 And this is [also] what Yahweh the Lord says: “Some day the people of Israel will live in their own land [again], the land that I gave to Jacob, who [also] served me. I will gather them from [distant] countries where I have scattered them. And I will reveal to the nations that I am holy among my people.
Thus saith the Lord God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26 My people will live safely in Israel; they will build houses and plant vineyards. And when I punish the nearby nations that despised them, they will know that it is I, Yahweh their God, [who has done it].”
And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God.
