43 When Jeremiah had finished giving this message from God to all the people, ^2-3 Azariah (son of Hoshaiah) and Johanan (son of Kareah) and all the other proud men said to Jeremiah, “You lie! The Lord our God hasn’t told you to tell us not to go to Egypt! Baruch (son of Neriah) has plotted against us and told you to say this so that we will stay here and be killed by the Babylonians or carried off to Babylon as slaves.”

⁴ So Johanan and all the guerrilla leaders and all the people refused to obey the Lord and stay in Judah. ⁵ All of them, including all those who had returned from the nearby countries where they had fled, now started off for Egypt with Johanan and the other captains in command. ⁶ In the crowd were men, women, and children, the king’s daughters, and all those whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, had left with Gedaliah. They even forced Jeremiah and Baruch to go with them too. ⁷ And so they arrived in Egypt at the city of Tahpanhes, for they would not obey the Lord.

⁸ Then at Tahpanhes, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah again and said: ⁹ “Call together the men of Judah and, as they watch you, bury large rocks between the pavement stones at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace here in Tahpanhes, ¹⁰ and tell the men of Judah this: The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will surely bring Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, here to Egypt, for he is my servant. I will set his throne upon these stones that I have hidden. He shall spread his royal canopy over them. ¹¹ And when he comes, he shall destroy the land of Egypt, killing all those I want killed and capturing those I want captured, and many shall die of plague. ¹² He will set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt and burn the idols and carry off the people as his captives. And he shall plunder the land of Egypt as a shepherd picks fleas from his cloak! And he himself shall leave unharmed. ¹³ And he shall break down the obelisks standing in the city of Heliopolis and burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.”