³ So they said, ^(A)“The God of the Hebrews has ^(B)met with us. Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with ^(C)pestilence or with the sword.”

¹⁸ Then ^(A)they will heed your voice; and ^(B)you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt; and you shall say to him, ‘The Lord God of the Hebrews has ^(C)met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’

The Nations Worship the King

¹⁶ And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall ^(A)go up from year to year to ^(B)worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep ^(C)the Feast of Tabernacles. ^17 (D)And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. ¹⁸ If the family of ^(E)Egypt will not come up and enter in, ^(F)they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁹ This shall be the ^[a]punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

¹¹ ‘Thus says the Lord God: ^(A)“Pound^[a] your fists and stamp your feet, and say, ‘Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! ^(B)For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.

⁸ Now do not be ^(A)stiff-necked,^[a] as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord; and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, ^(B)that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you.

²⁵ And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

²¹ The Lord will make the ^[a]plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess.