That the Lord your God may make clear to us the way in which we are to go and what we are to do.

Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass, that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you.

Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.

And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah.

He said to them, “This is what the Lord says, the God of Israel to whom you sent me to bring your petition before Him:

If ye will dwell in this land, I shall build you up, and not break you down. I shall plant you, and not root you out. For I am pacified, as concerning the trouble that I have done to you.

Do not fear the face of the king of Babylon, of whose face ye are afraid, - do not fear him, Urgeth Yahweh, for with you, am I, to save you, and to deliver you out of his hand:

then hear the word of the Lord, remnant of Judah! This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: If you are firmly resolved to go to Egypt and live there for a while,

Then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye were afraid, shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there ye shall die.

So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them.

for thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: As poured out hath been Mine anger and My fury on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so poured out is My fury upon you in your entering Egypt, and ye have been for an execration, and for an astonishment, and for a reviling, and for a reproach, and ye do not see any more this place.

For ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it.

And now I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God, nor any thing for the which he hath sent me unto you.

If ye will not follow it, be sure that ye shall perish with the sword, with hunger and pestilence: even in the same place where your lust was to go, and dwell."

And it came to pass, that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the LORD their God, for which the LORD their God had sent him to them, even all these words,

Then Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the men of pride, said to Jeremiah, You have said what is false: the Lord our God has not sent you to say, You are not to go into the land of Egypt and make your living-place there:

but Johanan son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah, who had returned, out of all the nations whither they had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah:

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah at Tahpanhes:

Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;

and thou hast said unto them: Thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: 'Lo, I am sending, and I have taken Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have set his throne above these stones that I have hid, and he hath stretched out his pavilion over them,

And I have kindled a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt, and it hath burned them, and he hath taken them captive, and covered himself with the land of Egypt, as cover himself doth the shepherd with his garment, and he hath gone forth thence in peace;

The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros, saying,

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: You have seen all the disaster I brought against Jerusalem and all Judah’s cities; look, they are a ruin today without an inhabitant in them

Yet I sent to you all My servants the prophets, again and again, saying, “Oh, do not do this shamefully vile thing which I hate.”

Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day.

Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain;

That is what will result from your making me angry by what you are doing. You are making me angry by sacrificing to other gods here in the land of Egypt where you live. You will be destroyed for doing that! You will become an example used in curses and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth.

Yet are ye not sorry this day. Ye fear not, neither walk ye in my law and my commandments, that I have given unto you and your forefathers.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am about to turn against you to bring disaster, to cut off all Judah.

I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle or perish from starvation. People of every class will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse.

However, all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, all the women standing by—a great assembly—and all the people who were living in the land of Egypt at Pathros answered Jeremiah,

"We will not listen to what you claim the Lord has spoken to us!

But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.

But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.

And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?

The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind?

So that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day.

Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.

Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people, particularly to all the women. "Listen to what the Lord has to say all you people of Judah who are in Egypt.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.

But listen to what the Lord has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The Lord says, 'I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, "As surely as the Lord God lives."

I will indeed see to it that disaster, not prosperity, happens to them. All the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will die in war or from starvation until not one of them is left.

Yet a small number that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs.

Moreover the Lord says, 'I will make something happen to prove that I will punish you in this place. I will do it so that you will know that my threats to bring disaster on you will prove true.

This is what the Lord says: I am about to hand over Pharaoh Hophra, Egypt’s king, to his enemies, to those who want to take his life, just as I handed over Judah’s King Zedekiah to Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, who was his enemy, the one who wanted to take his life.’”

The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying,

“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch:

‘You have said, “Woe is me, because the Lord has added misery to my pain! I am worn out with groaning and have found no rest.”’

Thus shalt thou say unto him, Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, what I have built do I overthrow, and what I have planted I pluck up, even this whole land.

And seekest thou yet promotion? Look not for it, and desire it not. For I will bring a miserable plague upon all flesh, sayeth the LORD. But thy life will I give thee for a prey, wheresoever thou goest."

Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh-Necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, the king of Judah.

Get out the breastplate and body-cover, and come together to the fight.

Wherefore have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: terror is on every side, saith Jehovah.

Who is it that is like the Nile when it riseth, Like rivers when his waters are tossed?

It is Egypt that riseth up as the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like the rivers; and he saith, I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof.

Go up, ye horses, and drive furiously, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Phut that handle the shield, and the Ludim that handle the bow and bend it.

For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

Go up to Gilead and get medicinal ointment, you dear poor people of Egypt. But it will prove useless no matter how much medicine you use; there will be no healing for you.

Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol!
Proclaim it in Memphis and in Tahpanhes!
Say: Take positions! Prepare yourself,
for the sword devours all around you.

How happeneth it that thy mighty worthies are fallen? Why stood they not fast? Even because the LORD thrust them down.

There they will cry out,
“Pharaoh king of Egypt was all noise;
he let the opportune moment pass.”

“As I live,” says the King,
Whose name is the Lord of hosts,
“Surely like Tabor among the mountains
Or like Carmel by the sea,
So shall he [the great king of Babylon] come.

Pack [your] baggage for exile, O inhabitants of the daughter of Egypt, for Memphis will become as a horror, and it will be destroyed, {without} inhabitant.

Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.

Even her hirelings in her midst are like fatted calves, For, even they, have turned - have fled at once! have made no stand! For, their day of doom, hath come upon them, The time of their visitation.

The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood.

They shall cut down her forest, saith the LORD, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable.

And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD.

But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.

Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.

Thus saith the LORD; Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.

At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses, at the rushing of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

at the same time when he shall be there to destroy the whole land of the Philistines. He shall make waste both Tyre and Sidon and all others that are sworn unto them. For the LORD will destroy all Philistia, and the other Isles that be divided from the country.

O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.

How can it be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? there hath he appointed it.

Against Moab thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Woe unto Nebo! for it is spoiled: Kiriathaim is confounded and taken: Misgab is confounded and dismayed.

There shall be no more praise of Moab: in Heshbon they have devised evil against it; come, and let us cut it off from being a nation. Also thou shalt be cut down, O Madmen; the sword shall pursue thee.

A voice cries out from Horonaim,
“devastation and great disaster!”

Moab will be shattered;
her little ones will cry out.

For by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping shall they go up; for at the descent of Horonaim they have heard the distress of the cry of destruction.

For, because of thy trusting in thy works, And in thy treasures, even thou art captured, And gone out hath Chemosh in a removal, His priests and his heads together.

A destroyer will come to every town and no town will escape. The valley will be ruined and the plateau destroyed." This is what the LORD has said!

Give wings unto Moab, that it may flee and get away: for the cities thereof shall be desolate, without any to dwell therein.

A curse on anyone who is lax in doing the Lord's work! A curse on anyone who keeps from carrying out his destruction!

Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

Therefore, lo, days are coming, An affirmation of Jehovah, And I have sent to him wanderers, And they have caused him to wander, And his vessels they empty out, And his bottles they dash in pieces.

The people of Moab will be disappointed by their god Chemosh. They will be as disappointed as the people of Israel were when they put their trust in the calf god at Bethel.

Moab is spoiled, and gone up out of her cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

Moab’s calamity is near at hand;
his disaster is rushing swiftly.

Bemoan for him, all ye round about him, And all knowing his name, say ye: How hath it been broken, the staff of strength, The rod of beauty.

O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and espy; ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?

Moab is confounded; for it is broken down: howl and cry; tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is spoiled,

on Kerioth and Bozrah. It will come on all the towns of Moab, both far and near.

Moab's might will be crushed. Its power will be broken. I, the Lord, affirm it!

Make her drunken, for she magnified herself above the LORD, that men may clap their hands at her vomit, and that she also may be laughed into scorn.

And was it not, a derision, that Israel became to thee? And was it not among thieves, he was found? For, as often as thou didst speak of him, thou didst wag the head!

Leave [the] towns and dwell on the rock, O inhabitants of Moab, and be like [the] dove, it nests on [the] sides of [the] mouth of a ravine.

We have had word of the pride of Moab, how great it is; how he is lifted up in pride; and his great opinion of himself, and that his heart is lifted up.

I know his wrath, saith the LORD; but it shall not be so; his lies shall not so effect it.

Therefore will I howl for Moab, and I will cry out for all Moab; mine heart shall mourn for the men of Kirheres.