23:1 Here is a message about Tyre:
Wail, you large ships,
for the port is too devastated to enter!
From the land of Cyprus this news is announced to them.
23:2 Lament, you residents of the coast,
you merchants of Sidon who travel over the sea,
whose agents sail over 23:3 the deep waters!
Grain from the Shihor region,
crops grown near the Nile she receives;
she is the trade center of the nations.
23:4 Be ashamed, O Sidon,
for the sea says this, O fortress of the sea:
“I have not gone into labor
or given birth;
I have not raised young men
or brought up young women.”
23:5 When the news reaches Egypt,
they will be shaken by what has happened to Tyre.
23:6 Travel to Tarshish!
Wail, you residents of the coast!
23:7 Is this really your boisterous city
whose origins are in the distant past,
and whose feet led her to a distant land to reside?
23:8 Who planned this for royal Tyre,
whose merchants are princes,
whose traders are the dignitaries of the earth?
23:9 The Lord who commands armies planned it –
to dishonor the pride that comes from all her beauty,
to humiliate all the dignitaries of the earth.
23:10 Daughter Tarshish, travel back to your land, as one crosses the Nile;
there is no longer any marketplace in Tyre.
23:11 The Lord stretched out his hand over the sea,
he shook kingdoms;
he gave the order
to destroy Canaan’s fortresses.
23:12 He said,
“You will no longer celebrate,
oppressed virgin daughter Sidon!
Get up, travel to Cyprus,
but you will find no relief there.”
23:13 Look at the land of the Chaldeans,
these people who have lost their identity!
The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals.
They erected their siege towers,
demolished its fortresses,
and turned it into a heap of ruins.
23:14 Wail, you large ships,
for your fortress is destroyed!