Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Yesterday we started reading Ezekiel's prophecies for Israel's enemy nations,

and we ended with a lament for Tyra, the wealthy city-state north of Israel.

One thing that shows up repeatedly in today's reading is the pride of the nations and how God

opposes that pride, even if that pride directly corresponds to gifts and skills he has given them.

For instance, God affirms that Tyra is legitimately beautiful and its leaders are certainly wise,

but they've corrupted those good gifts through the pride in their beauty and wisdom and wealth.

Then we read about Egypt, who is proud of its power and position.

People who take credit for their own strengths or who fixate on them too much,

steal the credit that belongs to the giver of those gifts. When you encounter

people who are like this, isn't it kind of repulsive? I think that might be one reason why the

self-esteem movement has backfired on us. Telling everyone how awesome they are might solve one

problem, but it creates another. It fosters entitlement and arrogance, and before we know it,

we've built a world of

insufferable humans. Sometimes swinging the pendulum to the other end doesn't create the balance we're

hoping for. Today we opened in Chapter 28 with prophecies directed at the leadership of Tyra.

It's unclear if these two sections are referring to the same person or not. The word used in

verse two is

sometimes translated as leader and sometimes as prince, so we don't know. Whatever role this person

serves in Tyra is obviously a significant one. And because of that, he actually claims to be a

God. According to verse 6, this is the tipping point for Yahweh.

Yahweh promises that the very things Tyra and its leader put confidence in will be attacked and destroyed.

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