Do Not Go Down to Egypt
“Ah, astubborn children,” declares the Lord,
b“who carry out a plan, but not mine,
and who make can alliance, but not of my Spirit,
that they may add sin to sin;
2 awho set out to go down to Egypt,
without asking for my direction,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
3 aTherefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,
and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.
4 For though his officials are at aZoan
and bhis envoys reach cHanes,
5 everyone comes to shame
through aa people that cannot profit them,
that brings neither help nor profit,
but shame and disgrace.”
6 An aoracle on bthe beasts of cthe Negeb.
Through a land of trouble and anguish,
from where come the lioness and the lion,
the adder and the dflying fiery serpent,
they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
and their treasures on the humps of camels,
to a people that cannot profit them.
7 Egypt’s ahelp is worthless and empty;
therefore I have called her
b“Rahab who sits still.”
A Rebellious People
8 And now, go, awrite it before them on a tablet
and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come
as a witness forever.
9 aFor they are a rebellious people,
lying children,
children unwilling to hear
the instruction of the Lord;
10 awho say to bthe seers, “Do not see,”
and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us csmooth things,
prophesy illusions,
11 leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“Because you despise this word
and trust in aoppression and perverseness
and rely on them,
13 therefore this iniquity shall be to you
alike a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,
whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
14 and its breaking is alike that of a potter’s vessel
that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a shard is found
with which to take fire from the hearth,
or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
“In areturning and brest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
But you were unwilling,
16 and you said,
“No! We will flee upon ahorses”;
therefore you shall flee away;
and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;
therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
17 aA thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
at the threat of five you shall flee,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like a signal on a hill.
The Lord Will Be Gracious
18 Therefore the Lord awaits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he bexalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
cblessed are all those who wait for him.
19 For a people shall dwell ain Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. 20 And though the Lord give you the abread of adversity and the awater of affliction, byet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 aAnd your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is bthe way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. 22 Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. aYou will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
23 aAnd he will give brain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. cIn that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, 24 and athe oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25 And aon every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, bwhen the towers fall. 26 aMoreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when bthe Lord binds up cthe brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.
27 Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar,
burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;
his lips are full of fury,
and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
28 ahis breath is blike an overflowing stream
that reaches up to the neck;
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
and to place on the jaws of the peoples ca bridle that leads astray.
29 You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, aas when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to bthe mountain of the Lord, to cthe Rock of Israel. 30 And the Lord awill cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger band a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst cand storm and hailstones. 31 The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, awhen he strikes with his rod. 32 And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them awill be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. bBattling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. 33 For aa burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, bits pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; cthe breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.