5. I will leave you in the desert, you and all the fish of your streams. You will fall on the open field and not be gathered or picked up. I will give you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky.
6. Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the Lord. “ ‘You have been a staff of reed for the people of Israel.
7. When they grasped you with their hands, you splintered and you tore open their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke and their backs were wrenched.
8. “ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will bring a sword against you and kill both man and beast.
9. Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the Lord. “ ‘Because you said, “The Nile is mine; I made it,”
10. therefore I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush.
11. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years.
12. I will make the land of Egypt desolate among devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate forty years among ruined cities. And I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them through the countries.