Jeremiah 42 - 46 — Legacy Standard Bible

The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray

42Then all the ¹commanders of the military forces, ^aJohanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people ^bboth small and great approached ²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our ^asupplication ¹come before you, and ^bpray for us to Yahweh your God, that is for all this remnant, because we remain but a ^cfew out of many, as your own eyes now see us, ³that Yahweh your God may tell us the ^away in which we should walk and the thing that we should do.” ⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I am going to ^apray to Yahweh your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole ¹message which ^bYahweh will answer you. I will ^cnot keep back a word from you.” ⁵And they said to Jeremiah, “May ^aYahweh be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole ¹message with which Yahweh your God will send you to us. ⁶“Whether it is good or bad, we will ^alisten to the voice of Yahweh our God to whom we are sending you, so that good ^bmay come to us when we listen to the voice of Yahweh our God.”

⁷Now it happened that at the ^aend of ten days the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then he called for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the ¹commanders of the military forces that were with him, and for all the people both small and great, ⁹and said to them, “Thus ^asays Yahweh the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before Him: ¹⁰‘If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will ^abuild you up and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I have ¹^,^brelented of the calamity that I have done against you. ¹¹‘^aDo not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,’ declares Yahweh, ‘for ^bI am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand. ¹²‘I will also show you compassion, so that ^ahe will have compassion on you and return you to your own soil. ¹³‘But if you are going to say, “We will ^anot stay in this land,” so as not to listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, ¹⁴saying, “No, but we will ^ago to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or ^bhear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there,” ¹⁵then now, listen to the word of Yahweh, O remnant of Judah. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “If you really set your face to enter ^aEgypt, and you will enter to sojourn there, ¹⁶then the ^asword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will ¹follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there. ¹⁷“So all the men who set their face to go to Egypt to sojourn there will die by the ^asword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and they will ^bhave no survivors or any who escaped from the calamity that I am going to bring on them.”’”

¹⁸For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “As My ^aanger and wrath have been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. And you will become a ^bcurse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a reproach; and ^cyou will see this place no more.” ¹⁹Yahweh has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, “Do not ^ago into Egypt!” You should clearly ^bknow that today I have ^ctestified against you. ²⁰For you have only ¹^,^aled yourselves astray; for it is you who sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, “Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and according to all that Yahweh our God says, tell us so, and we will do it.” ²¹So I have ^atold you today, but you have ^bnot listened to the voice of Yahweh your God, even according to all that He has sent me to tell you. ²²So now, you should clearly know that you will ^adie by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, in the ^bplace where you desire to go to sojourn.

Jeremiah Taken to Egypt

43But it happened that as soon as Jeremiah, whom Yahweh their God had sent, had ^afinished speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God—that is, all these words— ²Azariah the ^ason of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are ^bspeaking a lie! Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to sojourn there’; ³but ^aBaruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us to give us over into the hand of the Chaldeans, so they will put us to death or exile us to Babylon.” ⁴So ^aJohanan the son of Kareah and all the ¹commanders of the military forces and all the people ^bdid not listen to the voice of Yahweh to ^cstay in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the ¹commanders of the military forces took the ^aentire remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations to which they had been banished, in order to sojourn in the land of Judah— ⁶the men, the women, the little ones, the ^aking’s daughters, and ^bevery person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam ¹and grandson of Shaphan, together with ^cJeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah— ⁷and they entered the land of Egypt (for they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh) and went in as far as ^aTahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah in ^aTahpanhes, saying, ⁹“Take some large stones in your ¹hands and hide them in the mortar in the ²brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of ³some of the Jews; ¹⁰and you will say to them, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am going to send and get ^aNebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, ^bMy servant, and I am going to set his throne right over these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his ^ccanopy over them. ¹¹“He will also come and ^astrike the land of Egypt; those who are meant for death will be given over to death, and those for captivity to captivity, and ^bthose for the sword to the sword. ¹²“And ¹I shall set fire to the houses of the ^agods of Egypt, and he will burn them and take them captive. So he will ^bwrap himself with the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself with his garment, and he will depart from there safely. ¹³“He will also shatter the ¹sacred pillars of ²Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt he will burn with fire.”’”

Wrath Against the Israelites in Egypt

44The word that came to Jeremiah for all the Jews living in the land of Egypt, those who were living in ^aMigdol, ^bTahpanhes, ^cMemphis, and the land of ^dPathros, saying, ²“Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah; and behold, this day they are a ^awaste place and no one lives in them ³^abecause of their evil which they did so as to ^bprovoke Me to anger by continuing to ^cburn incense and to ^dserve other gods whom they had not known, neither they, you, nor your fathers. ⁴‘Yet I ^asent you all My slaves the prophets, rising up early and sending, saying, “Oh, do not do this ^babominable thing which I hate.” ⁵‘But ^athey did not listen or incline their ears to turn from their evil, so as not to burn incense to other gods. ⁶‘Therefore My ^awrath and My anger were poured out and burned in the ^bcities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, so they have become a waste place and a ^cdesolation as it is this day. ⁷‘So now, thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, “Why are you ^adoing great evil against yourselves, so as to ^bcut off from you man and woman, infant and nursing baby, from among Judah, leaving yourselves without remnant, ⁸^aprovoking Me to anger with the works of your hands, ^bburning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you are entering to sojourn, so that you might be cut off and become an ^cimprecation and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? ⁹“Have you forgotten the ^aevil of your fathers, the evil of the kings of Judah, and the evil of their wives, your own evil, and the evil of your wives, which they did in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰“But they ^ahave not become ¹contrite even to this day, nor have they feared nor ^bwalked in My law or My statutes, which I have put before you and before your fathers.”’

¹¹“Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am going to ^aset My face against you for your evil demise, even to cut off all Judah. ¹²‘And I will ^atake away the remnant of Judah who have set their face on entering the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they will all ¹^,^bmeet their end in the land of Egypt; they will fall by the sword and ²meet their end by famine. Both small and great will die by the sword and famine; and they will become a ^ccurse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a reproach. ¹³‘And I will ^apunish those who live in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence. ¹⁴‘So there will be ^ano one who escapes or any survivors for the remnant of Judah who have entered the land of Egypt to sojourn there and then to return to the land of Judah, to which they are ¹^,^blonging to return to live; for none will ^creturn except a few who escape.’”

¹⁵Then ^aall the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by, as a large assembly, ¹including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered to Jeremiah, saying, ¹⁶“As for the ¹^,^amessage that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahweh, ^bwe are not going to listen to you! ¹⁷“But rather we will certainly ^acarry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, ¹by burning incense to the ^bqueen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as ^cwe ourselves, our fathers, our kings, and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had ^dplenty of ²food and were well off and saw no evil. ¹⁸“But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have ^alacked everything and have ¹met our end by the sword and by famine.” ¹⁹“And,” said the women, “when we were ^aburning incense to the queen of heaven and ¹were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it ^bwithout our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes ²in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

²⁰Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women—even to all the people who were answering him with such a word—saying, ²¹“As for the ¹^,^asmoking sacrifices that you offered in the cities of Judah and in the ^bstreets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not Yahweh ^cremember them and did not all this come upon His heart? ²²“So Yahweh was ^ano longer able to bear it, ^bbecause of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations which you have done; thus your land has become a ^cwaste place, an object of horror, and an imprecation, without an inhabitant, as it is this day. ²³“Because you have burned incense and have sinned against Yahweh and ^anot listened to the voice of Yahweh or ^bwalked in His law, His statutes, or His testimonies, therefore this ^cevil has befallen you, as it has this day.”

²⁴Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “^aHear the word of Yahweh, all Judah who are ^bin the land of Egypt, ²⁵thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: ‘As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled it with your hands, saying, “We will ^acertainly perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” ¹^,^bGo ahead and establish your vows, and certainly perform your vows!’ ²⁶“¹Nevertheless, hear the word of Yahweh, all Judah who are living in the land of Egypt, ‘Behold, I have ^asworn by My great name,’ says Yahweh, ‘^bnever shall My name be called upon again by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “^cAs Lord Yahweh lives.” ²⁷‘Behold, I am watching over them ^afor ¹evil and not for good, and ^ball the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will ²meet their end by the sword and by famine until they ³are completely consumed. ²⁸‘^aThose who escape the sword will return out of the land of Egypt to the land of Judah ¹^,^bfew in number. Then all the remnant of Judah who have gone to the land of Egypt to sojourn there will know ^cwhose word will be established, Mine or theirs. ²⁹‘This will be the ^asign to you,’ declares Yahweh, ‘that I am going to punish you in this place, so that you may know that ^bMy words will surely be established against you for ¹evil.’ ³⁰“Thus says Yahweh, ‘Behold, I am going to give over ^aPharaoh Hophra king of Egypt to the hand of his enemies, to the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave over ^bZedekiah king of Judah to the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and was seeking his life.’”

Word to Baruch

45This is the message which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to ^aBaruch the son of Neriah, when he had ^bwritten down these words in a book ¹at Jeremiah’s dictation, in the ^cfourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: ²“Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel to you, O Baruch: ³‘You said, “Ah, woe is me! For Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain; I am ^aweary with my sighing and have found no rest.”’ ⁴“Thus you are to say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, ^awhat I have built I am about to pull down, and what I have planted I am about to uproot, that is, the whole land.” ⁵‘But as for you, are you ^aseeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I am going to ^bbring calamity on all flesh,’ declares Yahweh, ‘but I will ^cgive your life to you as spoil in all the places where you may go.’”

Word Against Egypt

46That which came as the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah the prophet ^aconcerning the nations.

²To ^aEgypt, concerning the military force of ^bPharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was by the Euphrates River at ^cCarchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck down in the ^dfourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

³“^aArrange the shield and large shield,And draw near for the battle!⁴“Harness the horses,And ¹mount the steeds,And take your stand with helmets on!^aPolish the spears,Put on the ^bscale-armor!⁵“Why have I seen it?They are shattered;They are ^adrawing back,And their ^bmighty men are crushedAnd have fled to refuge,Without facing back;¹^,^cTerror is on every side!”Declares Yahweh.⁶Let not the ^aswift man flee,Nor the mighty man escape;In the north beside the river EuphratesThey have ^bstumbled and fallen.⁷Who is this that ^arises like the Nile,Like the rivers whose waters toss about?⁸Egypt rises like the Nile,Even like the rivers whose waters toss about;And He has said, “I will ^arise and cover that land;I will surely ^bcause the city to perish, as well as its inhabitants.”⁹Go up, you horses, and ¹^,^adrive madly, you chariots,That the mighty men may go forth:²Ethiopia and ³^,^bPut, who seize the shield,And the ⁴^,^cLydians, who seize and bend the bow.¹⁰Indeed, ^athat day belongs to Lord Yahweh of hosts,A day of ^bvengeance, so as to avenge Himself on His adversaries;And the ^csword will devour and be satiatedAnd ¹drink its fill of their blood;For there will be a ^dsacrifice to Lord Yahweh of hostsIn the land of the north by the river Euphrates.¹¹Go ^aup to Gilead and obtain balm,^bO virgin daughter of Egypt!In vain have you multiplied ¹remedies;There is ^cno healing for you.¹²The nations have heard of your ^adisgrace,And the earth is full of your ^boutcry;For one ^cwarrior has stumbled over ¹another,And both of them have fallen down together.

¹³This is the ¹message which Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about the ^acoming of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to ^bstrike down the land of Egypt:

¹⁴“Declare in Egypt and cause it to be heard in ^aMigdol;Cause it to be heard also in Memphis and ^bTahpanhes;Say, ‘Take your stand and get yourself ready,For the ^csword has devoured those around you.’¹⁵“Why are your ^amighty ones thrown down?They do not stand because Yahweh has ^bthrust them down.¹⁶“They have repeatedly ^astumbled;Indeed, they have fallen one against another.Then they said, ‘Rise up! And ^blet us returnTo our own people and land of our birthAway from the ¹^,^csword of the oppressor.’¹⁷“¹They called out there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but ^aa rumbling;He has let the appointed time pass by!’¹⁸“As I live,” declares the ^aKingWhose name is Yahweh of hosts,“Surely one shall come who looms up like ^bTabor among the mountains,Or like ^cCarmel by the sea.¹⁹“Make your baggage ready for ^aexile,O inhabitant of the ^bdaughter of Egypt,For ^cMemphis will become a desolation;It will even be turned into ruin and without inhabitants.²⁰“Egypt is a pretty ^aheifer,But a ¹horsefly is coming ^bfrom the north—it is coming!²¹“Also her ^amercenaries in her midstAre like ¹fattened ^bcalves,For even they have turned back and have fled away together;They did not stand their ground.For the day of their disaster has come upon them,The time of their ^cpunishment.²²“Its sound moves along like a serpent;For they move on ¹like a military forceAnd come to her as woodcutters with axes.²³“They have cut down her ^aforest,” declares Yahweh;“Surely it will no longer be searched out,Even though ¹they are now more numerous than ^blocustsAnd are without number.²⁴“The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame,Given over to the hand of the ^apeople of the north.”

²⁵Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I am going to punish Amon of ^aThebes, and ^bPharaoh, and Egypt along with her ^cgods and her kings, even Pharaoh and those who ^dtrust in him. ²⁶“I shall give them into the hand of those who are ^aseeking their lives, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of his servants. ^bAfterwards, however, it will be dwelt in like in the days of old,” declares Yahweh.

²⁷“But as for you, O Jacob My servant, ^ado not fear,Nor be dismayed, O Israel!For behold, I am going to ^bsave you from afar,And your seed from the land of their captivity;And Jacob will return and have ^cquietAnd be at ease, with no one making him tremble.²⁸“O Jacob My servant, do not fear,” declares Yahweh,“For ^aI am with you.For I will make a complete destruction of all the nationsWhere I have banished you,Yet I will ^bnot make a complete destruction of you;But I will ^cdiscipline you with justiceAnd by no means leave you unpunished.”