Jeremiah 43
The people of Judah go to Egypt
1Jeremiah told all the people what the Lord their God had said. He gave them the full message that the Lord had given them. But when he finished telling them, 2Azariah and Johanan and some of the other men who did not respect the Lord said to him: ‘You are telling lies. The Lord our God did not send you to tell us not to go to Egypt to be strangers there. 3No, it is Baruch, son of Neriah, who said you must be against us. He wants you to help the Babylonians to catch and kill us or to take us away to Babylon.’
4Johanan and the officers and all the other people did not want to listen to the Lord. They did not want to stay in the land_of_Judah and live there. 5They took all the people with them who were left over, everyone who had come back from the other nations to which they had fled, and had come to live in Judah again. 6They took all the men and women and children and old people, the princesses and everyone that Nebuzaradan, the chief_officer of the Babylonians, had told to stay with Gedaliah. They also took the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch, son of Neriah. 7They went to Egypt and came to the town of Tahpanhes. They did not listen to the Lord.
Nebuchadnezzar will go to war_against the people of Egypt
8In the town of Tahpanhes the Lord talked to Jeremiah and said: 9‘You must take big stones and hide them in the mud under the brick floor in front of the building of Pharaoh in Tahpanhes. The people of Judah must see you when you do it. 10Then you must say to the people of Judah: “The Lord who rules over all, the God of Israel, says: Listen to Me. I will bring my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and I will put his throne on these stones that I have hidden and he will put up his tent on top of these stones. 11He will come and attack the people of Egypt. Some of them will die of disease, he will catch some of them and take them away, and he will kill some of them. 12And Nebuchadnezzar will start a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt. He will burn down the temples and take away their gods. He will catch the people of Egypt like a shepherd catches insects in his clothes and he will go away. No one will stop him. 13Nebuchadnezzar will break down the sacred_pillars of the town of Beth-Shemesh in Egypt and he will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.” ’
English Bible for the Deaf © Bible Society of South Africa 2019. Used with permission. All rights reserved.