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Thus says the Lord:
[a] See: waters are rising from the north,
    to become a torrent in flood;
They shall flood the land and all it contains,
    the cities and their inhabitants.
People will howl and wail,
    every inhabitant of the land.
At the noise of the pounding hooves of his steeds,
    the clanking chariots, the rumbling wheels,
Parents do not turn back for their children;
    their hands hang helpless,
Because of the day that is coming
    to destroy all the Philistines
And cut off from Tyre and Sidon[b]
    the last of their allies.
Yes, the Lord is destroying the Philistines,
    the remnant from the coasts of Caphtor.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 47:2–7 Nebuchadnezzar’s military campaign against Ashkelon in 604 B.C. may provide some historical background for this poem.
  2. 47:4 Tyre and Sidon: Phoenician seaports allied commercially with the Philistines and often rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar; cf. 27:1–4. After the capture of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar carried out a partially successful thirteen-year siege of Tyre. Caphtor: Crete and other Aegean islands, points of origin for the Philistines and other sea peoples; cf. Am 9:7.