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The Warning of Judah

30 Woe to the rebellious children,
    says the Lord,
who take counsel, but not from Me,
    and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,
    in order to add sin to sin;
they walk down to Egypt
    and have not asked from My mouth,
to strengthen themselves in the safety of Pharaoh
    and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
Therefore the safety of Pharaoh shall be your shame
    and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.
For their princes were at Zoan,
    and their ambassadors came to Hanes.
They all will be ashamed
    of a people who cannot profit them,
who are not a help or profit,
    but a shame and also a reproach.

The burden of the beasts of the Negev.

Through a land of trouble and anguish,
    from which comes the lioness and lion,
    the viper and fiery flying serpent,
they will carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys,
    and their treasures on the humps of camels,
to a people who shall not profit them.
    For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose.
Therefore, I have called her,
    “Rahab who has been exterminated.”

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You rely on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?

“Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then will you turn away one captain of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

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