Ezekiel 30; Ezekiel 31; Ezekiel 32; 1 Peter 4

1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2 Son of man prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Howl ye, Woe, woe to the day:

3 For the day is near, yea the day of the Lord is near: a cloudy day, it shall be the time of the nations.

4 And the sword shall come upon Egypt: and there shall be dread in Ethiopia, when the wounded shall fall in Egypt, and the multitude thereof shall be taken away, and the foundations thereof shall be destroyed.

5 Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the rest of the crowd, and Chub, and the children of the land of the covenant, shall fall with them by the sword.

6 Thus saith the Lord God: They also that uphold Egypt shall fall, and the pride of her empire shall be brought down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord the God of hosts.

7 And they shall be desolate in the midst of the lands that are desolate, and the cities thereof shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.

8 And they shall know that I am the Lord: when I shall have set a fire in Egypt, and all the helpers thereof shall be destroyed.

9 In that day shall messengers go forth from my face in ships to destroy the confidence of Ethiopia, and there shall be dread among them in the day of Egypt: because it shall certainly come.

10 Thus saith the Lord God: I will make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon.

11 He and his people with him, the strongest of nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords upon Egypt: and shall fill the land with the slain.

12 And I will make the channels of the rivers dry, and will deliver the land into the hand of the wicked: and will lay waste the land and all that is therein by the hands of strangers, I the Lord have spoken it.

13 Thus saith the Lord God: I will also destroy the idols, and I will make an end of the idols of Memphis: and there shall: be no more a prince of the land of Egypt and I will cause a terror in the land of Egypt.

14 And I will destroy the land of Phatures, and will make a fire in Taphnis, and will execute judgments in Alexandria.

15 And I will pour out my indignation upon Pelusium the strength of Egypt, and will cut off the multitude of Alexandria.

16 And I will make a fire in Egypt: Pelusium shall be in pain like a woman in labour, and Alexandria shall be laid waste, and in Memphis there shall be daily distresses.

17 The young men of Heliopolis, and of Bubastus shall fall by the sword, and they themselves shall go into captivity.

18 And in Taphnis the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the sceptres of Egypt, and the pride of her power shall cease in her: a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall be led into captivity.

19 And I will execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

20 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, that the word of the Lord came, me, saying:

21 Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharao king of Egypt: and behold it is not bound up, to be healed, to be tied up with clothes, and swathed with linen, that it might recover strength, and hold the sword.

22 Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against Pharao king of Egypt, and I will break into pieces his strong arm, which is already broken: and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand:

23 And I will disperse Egypt among the nations, and scatter them through the countries.

24 And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and will put my sword in his hand: and I will break the arms of Pharao, and they shall groan bitterly being slain before his face.

25 And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharao shall fall: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have given my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall have stretched it forth upon the land of Egypt.

26 And I will disperse Egypt among the nations, and will scatter them through the countries, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

1 And it came to pass, in the eleventh year, the third month the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2 Son of man, speak to Pharao king of Egypt, and to his people: To whom art thou like in thy greatness?

3 Behold, the Assyrian like a cedar in Libanus, with fair branches, and full of leaves, of a high stature, and his top was elevated among the thick boughs.

4 The waters nourished him, the deep set him tip on high, the streams thereof ran round about his roots, and it sent, forth its rivulets to all the trees of the country.

5 Therefore was his height exalted above all the trees of the country and his branches were multiplied, and his boughs were elevated because of many waters.

6 And when he had spread forth his shadow, all the fowls of the air made their nests in his boughs, and all the beasts of the forest brought forth their young under his branches, and the assembly of many nations dwelt under his shadow.

7 And he was most beautiful for his greatness, and for the spreading of his branches: for his root was near great waters.

8 The cedars in the paradise of God were not higher than he, the fir trees did not equal his top, neither were the plane trees to be compared with him for branches: no tree in the paradise of God was like him in his beauty.

9 For I made him beautiful and thick set with many branches: and all the trees of pleasure, that were in the paradise of God, envied him.

10 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because he was exalted in height, and shot up his top green and thick, and his heart was lifted up in his height:

11 I have delivered him into the hands of the mighty one of the nations, he shall deal with him: I have cast him out according to his wickedness.

12 And strangers, and the most cruel of the nations shall cut him down, and cast him away upon the mountains, and his boughs shall fall in every valley, and his branches shall be broken on every rock of the country: and all the people of the earth shall depart from his shadow, and leave him.

13 All the fowls of the air dwelt upon his ruins, and all the beasts of the field were among his branches.

14 For which cause none of the trees by the waters shall exalt themselves for their height: nor shoot up their tops among the thick branches and leaves, neither shall any of them that are watered stand up in their height: for they are all delivered unto death to the lowest parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down into the pit.

15 Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when he went down to hell, I brought in mourning, I covered him with the deep: and I withheld its rivers, and restrained the many waters: Libanus grieved for him, and all the trees of the field trembled.

16 I shook the nations with the sound of his fall, when I brought him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of pleasure, the choice and best in Libanus, all that were moistened with waters, were comforted in the lowest parts of the earth.

17 For they also shall go down with him to hell to them that are slain by the sword; and the arm of every one shall sit down under his shadow in the midst of the nations.

18 To whom art thou like, O thou that art famous and lofty among the trees of pleasure? Behold, thou art brought down with the trees of pleasure to the lowest parts of the earth: thou shalt sleep in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword: this is Pharao, and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.

1 And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2 Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharao the king of Egypt, and say to him: Thou art like the lion of the nations, and the dragon that is in the sea: and thou didst push with the horn in thy rivers, and didst trouble the waters with thy feet, and didst trample upon their streams.

3 Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: I will spread out my net over thee with the multitude of many people, and I will draw thee up in my net.

4 And I will throw thee out on the land, I will cast thee away into the open field and I will cause all the fowls of the air to dwell upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of all the earth with thee.

5 And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and will fill thy hills with thy corruption,

6 And I will water the earth with thy stinking blood upon the mountains, and the valleys shall be filled with thee.

7 And I will cover the heavens, when thou shalt be put out, and I will make the stars thereof dark: I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

8 I will make all the lights of heaven to mourn over thee and I will cause darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God, when thy wounded shall fall in the midst of the land, saith the Lord God.

9 And I shall provoke to anger the heart of many people, when I shall have brought in thy destruction among the nations upon the lands, which thou knowest not.

10 And I will make many people to be amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when my sword shall begin to fly upon their faces: and they shall be astonished on a sudden, every one for his own life, in the day of their ruin.

11 For thus saith the Lord God: The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee,

12 By the swords of the mighty I will overthrow thy multitude: all these nations are invincible: and they shall waste the pride of Egypt, and the multitude thereof shall be destroyed.

13 I will destroy also all the beasts thereof that were beside the great waters: and the foot of man shall trouble them no more, neither shall the hoof of beasts trouble them.

14 Then will I make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord God:

15 When I shall have made the land of Egypt desolate: and the land shall be destitute of her fulness, when I shall have struck all the inhabitants thereof and they shall know that I am the Lord.

16 This is the lamentation, and they shall lament therewith: the daughters of the nations shall lament therewith for Egypt, and for the multitude thereof they shall lament therewith, saith the Lord God.

17 And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me saying:

18 Son of man, sing a mournful song for the multitude of Egypt: and cast her down, both her, and the daughters of the mighty nations to the lowest part of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.

19 Whom dost thou excel in beauty? go down and sleep with the uncircumcised.

20 They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain with the sword: the sword is given, they have drawn her down, and all her people.

21 The most mighty among the strong ones shall speak to him from the midst of hell, they that went down with his helpers and slept uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

22 Assur is there, and all his multitude: their graves are round about him, all of them slain, and that fell by the sword.

23 Whose graves are set in the lowest parts of the pit: and his multitude lay round about his grave: all of them slain, and fallen by the sword, they that heretofore spread terror in the land of the living.

24 There is Elam and all his multitude round about his grave, all of them slain, and fallen by the sword; that went down uncircumcised to the lowest parts of the earth: that caused their terror in the land of the living, and they have borne their shame with them that go down into the pit.

25 In the midst of the slain they have set him a bed among all his people: their graves are round about him: all these are uncircumcised, and slain by the sword: for they spread their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with them that descend into the pit: they are laid in the midst of the slain.

26 There is Mosoch, and Thubal, and all their multitude: their graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised and slain, and fallen by the sword: though they spread their terror in the land of the living.

27 And they shall not sleep with the brave, and with them that fell uncircumcised, that went down to hell with their weapons, and laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities were in their bones, because they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

28 So thou also shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt sleep with them that are slain by the sword.

29 There is Edom, and her kings, and all her princes, who with their army are joined with them that are slain by the sword: and have slept with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down into the pit.

30 There are all the princes of the north, and all the hunters: who were brought down with the slain, fearing, and confounded in their strength: who slept uncircumcised with them that are slain by the sword, and have borne their shame with them that go down into the pit.

31 Pharao saw them, and he was comforted concerning all his multitude, which was slain by the sword: Pharao, and all his army, saith the Lord God:

32 Because I have spread my terror in the land of the living, and he hath slept in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain by the sword: Pharao and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.

1 Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sins:

2 That now he may live the rest of his time in the flesh, not after the desires of men but according to the will of God.

3 For the time past is sufficient to have fulfilled the will of the Gentiles, for them who have walked in riotousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings and unlawful worshipping of idols.

4 Wherein they think it strange that you run not with them into the same confusion of riotousness: speaking evil of you.

5 Who shall render account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

6 For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to the dead: That they might be judged indeed according to men, in the flesh: but may live according to God, in the Spirit.

7 But the end of all is at hand. Be prudent therefore and watch in prayers.

8 But before all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covereth a multitude of sins.

9 Using hospitality one towards another, without murmuring,

10 As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another: as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

11 If any man speak, let him speak, as the words of God. If any minister, let him do it, as of the power which God administereth: that in all things God may be honoured through Jesus Christ: to whom is glory and empire for ever and ever. Amen.

12 Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning heat which is to try you: as if some new thing happened to you.

13 But if you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

14 If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honour, glory and power of God, and that which is his Spirit resteth upon you.

15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a railer or coveter of other men’s things.

16 But, if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed: but let him glorify God in that name.

17 For the time is, that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if at first at us, what shall be the end of them that believe not the gospel of God?

18 And if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

19 Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commend their souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator.