Jeremiah 42:1-43:7

Contemporary English Version

42 ¹ Johanan, Jezaniah,^[a] the other army officers, and everyone else in the group, came to me ² and said, “Please, Jeremiah, pray to the Lord your God for us. Judah used to have many people, but as you can see, only a few of us are left. ³ Ask the Lord to tell us where he wants us to go and what he wants us to do.”

⁴ “All right,” I answered, “I will pray to the Lord your God, and I will tell you everything he says.”

⁵ They answered, “The Lord himself will be our witness that we promise to do whatever he says, ⁶ even if it isn't what we want to do. We will obey the Lord so that all will go well for us.”

⁷ Ten days later, the Lord gave me an answer for ⁸ Johanan, the officers, and the other people. So I called them together ⁹ and told them that the Lord God of Israel had said:

You asked Jeremiah to pray and find out what you should do. ¹⁰ I am sorry that I had to punish you, and so I now tell you to stay here in Judah, where I will plant you and build you up, instead of tearing you down and uprooting you. ¹¹ Don't be afraid of the King of Babylonia. I will protect you from him, ¹² and I will even force him to have mercy on you and give back your farms.

¹³ But you might keep on saying, “We won't stay here in Judah, and we won't obey the Lord our God. ¹⁴ We are going to Egypt, where there is plenty of food and no danger of war.”

¹⁵ People of Judah, you survived when the Babylonian army attacked. Now you are planning to move to Egypt, and if you do go, this is what will happen. ^16-17 You are afraid of war, starvation, and disease here in Judah, but they will follow you to Egypt and kill you there. None of you will survive the disasters I will send.

¹⁸ I, the Lord, was angry with the people of Jerusalem and punished them. And if you go to Egypt, I will be angry and punish you the same way. You will never again see your homeland. People will be horrified at what I do to you, and they will use the name of your city as a curse word.

Jeremiah Gives a Warning

¹⁹ I told the people:

You escaped the disaster that struck Judah, but now the Lord warns you to stay away from Egypt. ²⁰ You asked me to pray and find out what the Lord our God wants you to do, and you promised to obey him. But that was a terrible mistake, ²¹ because now that I have given you the Lord's answer, you refuse to obey him. ²² And so, you will die in Egypt from war, hunger, and disease.

The People Go to Egypt

43 I told the people everything the Lord had told me. ² But Azariah, Johanan^[b] and some other arrogant men said to me, “You're lying! The Lord didn't tell you to say that we shouldn't go to Egypt. ³ Baruch son of Neriah must have told you to say that. He wants the Babylonians to capture us, so they can take us away to Babylonia or even kill us.”

⁴ Johanan, the other army officers, and everyone else refused to stay in Judah in spite of the Lord's command. ^5 (A) So Johanan and the officers led us away toward Egypt. The group that left Judah included those who had been scattered in other countries and who had then come back to live in Judah. ⁶ Baruch and I and others in the group had been staying with Gedaliah, because Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian officer in charge of the guard, had ordered him to take care of the king's daughters and quite a few men, women, and children.

⁷ The people disobeyed the Lord and went to Egypt. The group had settled in Tahpanhes,