⁵ When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled,^(A) Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds^(B) about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!”

²⁴ “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ ²⁵ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. ²⁶ Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”^(A)

¹⁰ So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free. ¹¹ But afterward they changed their minds^(A) and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.

¹² Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ¹³ “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors^(B) when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.^(C) I said, ¹⁴ ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’^[a](D) Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention^(E) to me. ¹⁵ Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people.^(F) You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name.^{(G) 16} But now you have turned around^(H) and profaned^(I) my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again.

¹⁷ “Therefore this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you,^(J) declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague^(K) and famine.^(L) I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth.^(M)

³³ The Egyptians urged the people to hurry^(A) and leave^(B) the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!”^(C)

²⁰ If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing^(A) our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ^(B) and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.^{(C) 21} It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.^{(D) 22} Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”^[a](E) and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”