- God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against the Prince of Tyre.
- The Prince has grown really arrogant, believing himself to be a god rather than the mortal he is.
- He is, says God/Ezekiel, genuinely wise. But he's squandered that wisdom, which once helped him amass wealth, through excessive pride. Excessive pride is one of God's pet peeves.
- To punish him for believing he's a god, God will let the Babylonians kill him and thrust him down into The Pit (the underworld). He'll die the death of the uncircumcised.
More Fire in Tyre
- Next, after prophesying against the prince, Ezekiel and God start to lament the fall of the Prince of Tyre.
- In the beginning, the Prince of Tyre was pretty great: full of wisdom and beauty. He was in Eden, God's garden, full of precious stones and gold engravings.
- The Prince was on God's mountain, walking among stones of fire, guarded by a cherub that God had appointed.
- But, eventually, the Prince of Tyre gets consumed with pride and behaves violently, so the guardian cherub drives him out of "Eden."
- God brings out fire from inside the Prince of Tyre, which burns him up as punishment for corrupting his wisdom.
- Everyone is appalled at his fate. We can see why.
Oh, and Down With Sidon, Too
- God continues condemning different places: now, he says, Sidon will be punished with pestilence and warfare.
- He doesn't get specific, but God's apparently doing this as punishment for Sidon siding against Israel, since he says that Israel will no longer find a remaining thorn or briar among the nations that used to oppose it.
- He ends by promising the people of Israel that they'll be led out of the lands into which they've been scattered, and will come back to their homeland to build houses and plant vineyards. They'll live in peace while their neighbors are punished.