Jeremiah 46:13-26

Living Bible

¹³ Then God gave Jeremiah this message concerning the coming of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to attack Egypt:

¹⁴ Shout it out in Egypt; publish it in the cities of Migdol, Memphis, and Tahpanhes! Mobilize for battle, for the sword of destruction shall devour all around you. ¹⁵ Why has Apis, your bull god, fled in terror? Because the Lord knocked him down before your enemies. ¹⁶ Vast multitudes fall in heaps. (Then the remnant of the Jews will say, “Come, let us return again to Judah where we were born and get away from all this slaughter here!”)

¹⁷ Rename Pharaoh Hophra and call him “The Man with No Power but with Plenty of Noise!”

¹⁸ As I live, says the King, the Lord of Hosts, one is coming against Egypt who is as tall as Mount Tabor or Mount Carmel by the sea! ¹⁹ Pack up; get ready to leave for exile, you citizens of Egypt, for the city of Memphis shall be utterly destroyed and left without a soul alive. ^20-21 Egypt is sleek as a heifer, but a gadfly sends her running—a gadfly from the north! Even her famed mercenaries have become like frightened calves. They turn and run, for it is the day of great calamity for Egypt, a time of great punishment. ^22-23 Silent as a serpent gliding away, Egypt flees; the invading army marches in. The numberless soldiers cut down your people like woodsmen who clear a forest of its trees. ²⁴ Egypt is as helpless as a girl before these men from the north.

²⁵ The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will punish Amon, god of Thebes, and all the other gods of Egypt. I will punish Pharaoh too, and all who trust in him. ²⁶ I will deliver them into the hands of those who want them killed—into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his army. But afterwards the land shall recover from the ravages of war.