18. “As surely as I live,” says the King,whose name is the lord of Heaven’s Armies,“one is coming against Egyptwho is as tall as Mount Tabor,or as Mount Carmel by the sea!
19. Pack up! Get ready to leave for exile,you citizens of Egypt!The city of Memphis will be destroyed,without a single inhabitant.
20. Egypt is as sleek as a beautiful heifer,but a horsefly from the north is on its way!
21. Egypt’s mercenaries have become like fattened calves.They, too, will turn and run,for it is a day of great disaster for Egypt,a time of great punishment.
22. Egypt flees, silent as a serpent gliding away.The invading army marches in;they come against her with axes like woodsmen.
23. They will cut down her people like trees,” says the lord,“for they are more numerous than locusts.
24. Egypt will be humiliated;she will be handed over to people from the north.”
25. The lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: “I will punish Amon, the god of Thebes, and all the other gods of Egypt. I will punish its rulers and Pharaoh, too, and all who trust in him.
26. I will hand them over to those who want them killed—to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his army. But afterward the land will recover from the ravages of war. I, the lord, have spoken!