Jeremiah 42:7-18

International Standard Version

¹⁰ ‘If you will just remain in this land, I’ll build you up and not pull you down. I’ll plant you and not uproot you, for I’m sorry about the disaster I’ve brought on you. ¹¹ Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon as you have been.^[a] Don’t fear him,’ declares the Lord, ‘because I am with you to save you and deliver you from his control. ¹² I’ll show you compassion, so he will have compassion on you and return you to your land. ¹³ But if you disobey the Lord your God by saying, “We won’t stay in this land,” ¹⁴ and you also say, “No, but we will go to the land of Egypt where we won’t see war or hear the sound of the trumpet or hunger for bread, and there we will stay,” ¹⁵ then hear this message from the Lord, remnant of Judah: ‘This is what the Lord of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: “If you are really determined^[b] to go into Egypt, and you go there to settle, ¹⁶ the sword that you fear will overtake you there in the land of Egypt. The famine that you dread will pursue you into Egypt, and there you will die. ¹⁷ All the people who are determined to go into Egypt to settle there will die by the sword, by famine, and by the plague. No one will survive the disaster that I’ll bring on them.” ¹⁸ For this is what the Lord of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. You will be a curse and an object of horror, ridicule, and scorn, and you will never again see this place.’