An Oracle Concerning Egypt
1 An oracle fconcerning Egypt.
Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud
and comes to Egypt;
and the gidols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
2 And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
and they will fight, heach against another
and each against his neighbor,
city against city, kingdom against kingdom;
3 and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
and I will confound1 their counsel;
and they will iinquire of the idols and the sorcerers,
and the mediums and the necromancers;
4 and I will give over the Egyptians
jinto the hand of a hard master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,
declares the Lord God of hosts.
5 And the waters of the sea will be dried up,
and the river will be dry and parched,
6 and its canals will become foul,
and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up,
reeds and rushes will rot away.
7 There will be bare places by the Nile,
on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched,
will be driven away, and will be no more.
8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,
all who cast a hook in the Nile;
and they will languish
who spread nets on the water.
9 The workers in combed flax will be in despair,
and the weavers of white cotton.
10 Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed,
and all who work for pay will be grieved.
11 The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish;
the kwisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am a son of the wise,
a son of ancient kings”?
12 Where then are your wise men?
Let them tell you
that they might know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have become fools,
and the princes of Memphis are deluded;
those who are the cornerstones of her tribes
have made Egypt stagger.
14 The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion,
and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds,
as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
15 And there will be nothing for Egypt
that lhead or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.
Egypt, Assyria, Israel Blessed
16 In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before mthe hand that the Lord of hosts shakes over them. 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the Lord of hosts has purposed against them.
The Two Witnesses
1 Then I was given a hmeasuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, 2 but do not measure ithe court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will jtrample the holy city for kforty-two months. 3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for l1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
4 These are mthe two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone would harm them, nfire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. 6 They have othe power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to pturn them into blood and qto strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. 7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rrises from the bottomless pit1 swill make war on them and tconquer them and kill them, 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of uthe great city that symbolically2 is called vSodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. 9 For three and a half days some from the wpeoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, 10 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. 11 But after the three and a half days xa breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, y“Come up here!” And they zwent up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. 13 And at that hour there was a agreat earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
14 The second bwoe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.
The Seventh Trumpet
15 Then the seventh angel blew his ctrumpet, and there were dloud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord eand of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” 16 And the ftwenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God gfell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying,
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
hwho is and who was,
for you have taken your great power
and ibegun to reign.
18 jThe nations raged,
but your wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
and those who fear your name,
kboth small and great,
and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
19 Then God’s temple in heaven lwas opened, and the mark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were nflashes of lightning, rumblings,3 peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy ohail.
