When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.

"Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water?

Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?

So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day--

which sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation, tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.

And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.

the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?