Jeremiah 42:1-44:23

English Standard Version

Warning Against Going to Egypt

42 Then ^(A)all the commanders of the forces, and ^(B)Johanan the son of Kareah and Jezaniah the son of ^(C)Hoshaiah, and all the people ^(D)from the least to the greatest, came near ²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Let ^(E)our plea for mercy come before you, and ^(F)pray to the Lord your God for us, for all ^(G)this remnant—^(H)because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us— ³that ^(I)the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.” ⁴Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to the Lord your God according to your request, and ^(J)whatever the Lord answers you I will tell you. ^(K)I will keep nothing back from you.” ⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, ^(L)“May the Lord be a true and ^(M)faithful witness against us ^(N)if we do not act according to all the word ^(O)with which the Lord your God sends you to us. ⁶Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, ^(P)that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.”

⁷^(Q)At the end of ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then he summoned ^(R)Johanan the son of Kareah and ^(S)all the commanders of the forces who were with him, and all the people ^(T)from the least to the greatest, ⁹and said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ^(U)to whom you sent me to present your plea for mercy before him: ¹⁰If you will remain in this land, ^(V)then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up; ^(W)for I relent of the disaster that I did to you. ¹¹^(X)Do not fear the king of Babylon, ^(Y)of whom you are afraid. ^(Z)Do not fear him, declares the Lord, ^(AA)for I am with you, to save you and to deliver you from his hand. ¹²^(AB)I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land. ¹³^(AC)But if you say, ‘We will not remain in this land,’ disobeying the voice of the Lord your God ¹⁴and saying, ‘No, ^(AD)we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or ^(AE)hear the sound of the trumpet or ^(AF)be hungry for bread, and we will dwell there,’ ¹⁵then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(AG)If you set your faces to enter Egypt ^(AH)and go to live there, ¹⁶then the sword ^(AI)that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt, ^(AJ)and there you shall die. ¹⁷All the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to live there shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. They shall have ^(AK)no remnant or survivor from the disaster that I will bring upon them.

¹⁸“For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(AL)As my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you when you go to Egypt. ^(AM)You shall become an execration, a horror, a curse, and a taunt. You shall see this place no more. ¹⁹The Lord has said to you, O remnant of Judah, ^(AN)‘Do not go to Egypt.’ ^(AO)Know for a certainty that I have warned you this day ²⁰that you have gone astray at the cost of your lives. ^(AP)For you sent me to the Lord your God, saying, ^(AQ)‘Pray for us to the Lord our God, and ^(AR)whatever the Lord our God says, declare to us and we will do it.’ ²¹And I have this day declared it to you, but you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in anything ^(AS)that he sent me to tell you. ²²^(AT)Now therefore know for a certainty that you shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.”

Jeremiah Taken to Egypt

43 When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words of the Lord their God, with which the Lord their God had sent him to them, ²Azariah the son of ^(AU)Hoshaiah and ^(AV)Johanan the son of Kareah and ^(AW)all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The Lord our God did not send you to say, ^(AX)‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’ ³but ^(AY)Baruch the son of Neriah ^(AZ)has set you against us, ^(BA)to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.” ⁴So ^(BB)Johanan the son of Kareah and all ^(BC)the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the Lord, to remain in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took ^(BD)all the remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven— ⁶^(BE)the men, the women, the children, ^(BF)the princesses, and every person whom ^(BG)Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with ^(BH)Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah. ⁷And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the Lord. And they arrived at ^(BI)Tahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in ^(BJ)Tahpanhes: ⁹“Take in your hands large stones and hide them in the mortar in the pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in ^(BK)Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah, ¹⁰and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, ^(BL)my servant, ^(BM)and I will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them. ¹¹He shall come ^(BN)and strike the land of Egypt, ^(BO)giving over to the pestilence those who are doomed to the pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to the sword those who are doomed to the sword. ¹²^(BP)I shall kindle a fire ^(BQ)in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them ^(BR)and carry them away captive. ^(BS)And he shall clean the land of Egypt ^(BT)as a shepherd cleans his cloak of vermin, and he shall go away from there in peace. ¹³He shall break the ^(BU)obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt, ^(BV)and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire.’”

Judgment for Idolatry

44 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Judeans who lived in the land of Egypt, at ^(BW)Migdol, at ^(BX)Tahpanhes, at Memphis, and in the land of ^(BY)Pathros, ²“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You have seen all the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Behold, this day ^(BZ)they are a desolation, and no one dwells in them, ³because of the evil that they committed, ^(CA)provoking me to anger, ^(CB)in that they went to make offerings ^(CC)and serve other gods that they knew not, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers. ⁴^(CD)Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’ ⁵^(CE)But they did not listen ^(CF)or incline their ear, to turn from their evil and make no offerings to other gods. ⁶^(CG)Therefore my wrath and my anger were poured out and kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, ^(CH)and they became a waste and a desolation, as at this day. ⁷And now thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel: Why do you commit this great evil ^(CI)against yourselves, to cut off from you ^(CJ)man and woman, ^(CK)infant and child, from the midst of Judah, leaving you no remnant? ⁸^(CL)Why do you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, ^(CM)making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to live, so that you may be cut off and become ^(CN)a curse and a taunt among all the nations of the earth? ⁹Have you forgotten the evil of your fathers, ^(CO)the evil of the kings of Judah, ^(CP)the evil of their^[a] wives, your own evil, ^(CQ)and the evil of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰They have not humbled themselves even to this day, ^(CR)nor have they feared, nor walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.

¹¹“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(CS)Behold, I will set my face against you for harm, to cut off all Judah. ¹²I will take the remnant of Judah who have ^(CT)set their faces to come to the land of Egypt to live, and they shall all be consumed. ^(CU)In the land of Egypt they shall fall; by the sword and by famine ^(CV)they shall be consumed. ^(CW)From the least to the greatest, they shall die by the sword and by famine, ^(CX)and they shall become an oath, a horror, ^(CY)a curse, and a taunt. ¹³^(CZ)I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, ¹⁴^(DA)so that none of the remnant of Judah who have come to live in the land of Egypt shall escape or survive ^(DB)or return to the land of Judah, to which they desire to return to dwell there. For they shall not return, ^(DC)except some fugitives.”

¹⁵Then all the men who knew that ^(DD)their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in ^(DE)Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: ¹⁶“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, ^(DF)we will not listen to you. ¹⁷^(DG)But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to ^(DH)the queen of heaven ^(DI)and pour out drink offerings to her, ^(DJ)as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. ¹⁸But since we left off making offerings to ^(DK)the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything ^(DL)and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” ¹⁹And the women said,^[b] “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven ^(DM)and poured out drink offerings to her, was it ^(DN)without our husbands' approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

²⁰Then Jeremiah said to all the people, ^(DO)men and women, all the people who had given him this answer: ²¹^(DP)“As for the offerings that you offered in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land, ^(DQ)did not the Lord remember them? Did it not come into his mind? ²²^(DR)The Lord could no longer bear your evil deeds and ^(DS)the abominations that you committed. ^(DT)Therefore your land has become ^(DU)a desolation and a waste and a curse, ^(DV)without inhabitant, as it is this day. ²³It is because you made offerings ^(DW)and because you sinned against the Lord and did not obey the voice of the Lord or walk in his law and in his statutes and in his testimonies ^(DX)that this disaster has happened to you, as at this day.”