Isaiah 19:2–16

²“So I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian;

brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor,

city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

³Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied out from among them,

and I will frustrate their plans,

so that they will resort to idols and spirits of the dead,

to mediums and spiritists.

⁴I will deliver the Egyptians into the hands of a harsh master,

and a fierce king will rule over them,”

declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.

⁵The waters of the Nile will dry up,

and the riverbed will be parched and empty.

⁶The canals will stink;

the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up;

the reeds and rushes will wither.

⁷The bulrushes by the Nile,

by the mouth of the river,

and all the fields sown along the Nile,

will wither, blow away, and be no more.

⁸Then the fishermen will mourn,

all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament,

and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

⁹The workers in flax will be dismayed,

and the weavers of fine linen will turn pale.

¹⁰The workers in cloth^a will be dejected,

and all the hired workers will be sick at heart.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are mere fools;

Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice.

How can you say to Pharaoh,

“I am one of the wise,

a son of eastern kings”?

¹²Where are your wise men now?

Let them tell you and reveal

what the LORD of Hosts has planned against Egypt.

¹³The princes of Zoan have become fools;

the princes of Memphis^b are deceived.

The cornerstones of her tribes

have led Egypt astray.

¹⁴The LORD has poured into her

a spirit of confusion.

Egypt has been led astray in all she does,

as a drunkard staggers through his own vomit.

¹⁵There is nothing Egypt can do —

head or tail, palm or reed.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble with fear beneath the uplifted hand of the LORD of Hosts, when He brandishes it against them.