Old/New Testament

46 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning and against the [Gentile] nations.

² Concerning and against Egypt: against the army of Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish, which ^[a]Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote and defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:^(A)

³ Put in order the buckler and shield, and advance for battle!

⁴ Harness the horses, and mount, you horsemen! Stand forth with your helmets! Polish the spears, put on the coats of mail!

⁵ Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and have turned backward, and their mighty warriors are beaten down. They flee in haste and look not back; terror is on every side! says the Lord.^(B)

⁶ Let not the swift flee nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Euphrates they stumble and fall.

⁷ Who is this that rises up like the Nile [River], like the branches [of the Nile in the delta of Egypt] whose waters surge and toss?

⁸ Egypt rises like the Nile, like the rivers whose waters surge and toss. She says, I will rise, I will cover the earth; I will destroy cities and their inhabitants.

⁹ Go up, you horses, and drive furiously, you chariots! Let the warriors go forth—men of Ethiopia and Put who handle the shield, men of Lud who are skilled in handling and stringing the bow.

¹⁰ But that day is a day of the Lord, the Lord of hosts—a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Himself on His adversaries. And the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiated and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, the Lord of hosts has a sacrifice [like that of a great sin offering] in the north country by the river Euphrates.

¹¹ Go up into Gilead and take [healing] balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt! In vain do you use many medicines; for you there is no healing or remedy.

¹² The nations have heard of your disgrace and shame, and your cry has filled the earth. For warrior has stumbled against and thrown down warrior, and they have fallen both of them together.

¹³ The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the coming of ^[b]Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and his smiting of the land of Egypt:

¹⁴ Declare in Egypt and proclaim in Migdol; and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes; say, Stand forth and get yourself ready, for the sword devours round about you.

¹⁵ Why is your strong one [the sacred bull-god Apis] swept and dragged away? He stood not, because the Lord drove him and thrust him down.

¹⁶ [The Lord] made many to stumble and fall; yes, they fell one upon another. And they said, Arise, and let us go back to our own people and to the land of our birth, away from the sword of the oppressor.

¹⁷ They cried there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is destroyed and is only a noise; he has let the appointed time [in which God had him on probation] pass by!

¹⁸ As I live, says the King, Whose name is the Lord of hosts, surely like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea, so shall he [the king of Babylon, standing out above other rulers] come.

¹⁹ O you daughter who dwells in Egypt and you who dwell with her, furnish yourselves [with all you will need] to go into exile, for Memphis will be waste, desolate, and burned up, without inhabitant.

²⁰ Egypt is a very fair heifer [like Apis the bull-god, to which the country is, so to speak, espoused], but destruction [a gadfly] is coming—out of the north it is coming [against her]!

²¹ Also her hired troops in the midst of her are like fatted calves [in the stall], for they also are turned back and are fleeing together; they do not stand, because the day of their calamity is coming upon them, the time of their visitation (their inspection and punishment).

²² The sound [of Egypt fleeing from the enemy] is like the rustling of an escaping serpent, for her foes advance with a mighty army and come against her with axes, like those who fell trees and cut wood.

²³ They shall cut down her forest, says the Lord, though it is impenetrable, because they [the invading army] are more numerous than locusts and cannot be counted.

²⁴ The Daughter of Egypt shall be disgraced; she shall be delivered into the hands of the people of the north [the Chaldeans].

²⁵ The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says: Behold, I will visit punishment upon Amon [the chief god of the sacred city, the capital of Upper Egypt] of No or Thebes, and upon Pharaoh and Egypt, with her gods and her kings—even Pharaoh and all those [Jews and others] who put their trust in [Pharaoh as a support against Babylon].

²⁶ And I will deliver them into the hands of those who seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hands of his servants. Afterward [Egypt] will be ^[c]inhabited as in the days of old, says the Lord.

²⁷ But fear not, O My servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel. For behold, I will save you from afar, and your offspring from the land of their exile; and Jacob will return and be quiet and at ease, and none will make him afraid.

²⁸ Fear not, O Jacob My servant, says the Lord, for I am with you. For I will make a full and complete end of all the nations to which I have driven you; yet I will not make a full end of you. But I will chasten and correct you in just measure, and I will not hold you guiltless by any means or leave you unpunished.

47 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines before Pharaoh smote [the Philistine city] Gaza.^(C)

² Thus says the Lord: Behold, waters are rising out of the north and shall become an overflowing stream and shall overflow the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell in it. Then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land [of Philistia] shall wail.

³ At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of [the Chaldean king’s] war-horses, at the rattling of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers do not look back to their children, so feeble are their hands [with terror]

⁴ Because of the day that is coming to destroy all the Philistines and to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper who remains. For the Lord is destroying the Philistines, the remnant [still surviving] of the isle or coastland of Caphtor [where the Philistines originated].^(D)

⁵ Baldness [as a token of mourning] will come upon Gaza; Ashkelon will be cut off and be dumb. O remnant of their valley and of the giants, how long will you gash yourselves [as a token of mourning]?

⁶ O you sword of the Lord, how long will it be before you are quiet? Put yourself into your scabbard; rest and be still.

⁷ How can it [the sword of the Lord] be quiet when the Lord has given it an assignment to discharge? Against Ashkelon and against the [whole Philistine] seashore He has appointed it.

6 Therefore let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God,

² With teachings about purifying, the laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment and punishment. [These are all matters of which you should have been fully aware long, long ago.]

³ If indeed God permits, we will [now] proceed [to advanced teaching].

⁴ For it is impossible [to restore and bring again to repentance] those who have been once for all enlightened, who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift and have become sharers of the Holy Spirit,

⁵ And have felt how good the Word of God is and the mighty powers of the age and world to come,

⁶ If they then deviate from the faith and turn away from their allegiance—[it is impossible] to bring them back to repentance, for (because, while, as long as) they nail upon the cross the Son of God afresh [as far as they are concerned] and are holding [Him] up to contempt and shame and public disgrace.

⁷ For the soil which has drunk the rain that repeatedly falls upon it and produces vegetation useful to those for whose benefit it is cultivated partakes of a blessing from God.

⁸ But if [that same soil] persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.^(A)

⁹ Even though we speak this way, yet in your case, beloved, we are now firmly convinced of better things that are near to salvation and accompany it.

¹⁰ For God is not unrighteous to forget or overlook your labor and the love which you have shown for His name’s sake in ministering to the needs of the saints (His own consecrated people), as you still do.

¹¹ But we do [^[a]strongly and earnestly] desire for each of you to show the same diligence and sincerity [all the way through] in realizing and enjoying the full assurance and development of [your] hope until the end,

¹² In order that you may not grow disinterested and become [spiritual] sluggards, but imitators, behaving as do those who through faith (^[b]by their leaning of the entire personality on God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness) and by practice of patient endurance and waiting are [now] inheriting the promises.

¹³ For when God made [His] promise to Abraham, He swore by Himself, since He had no one greater by whom to swear,

¹⁴ Saying, Blessing I certainly will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you.^(B)

¹⁵ And so it was that he [Abraham], having waited long and endured patiently, realized and obtained [in the birth of Isaac as a pledge of what was to come] what God had promised him.

¹⁶ Men indeed swear by a greater [than themselves], and with them in all disputes the oath taken for confirmation is final [ending strife].

¹⁷ Accordingly God also, in His desire to show more convincingly and beyond doubt to those who were to inherit the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose and plan, intervened (mediated) with an oath.

¹⁸ This was so that, by two unchangeable things [His promise and His oath] in which it is impossible for God ever to prove false or deceive us, we who have fled [to Him] for refuge might have mighty indwelling strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope appointed for us and set before [us].

¹⁹ [Now] we have this [hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul [it cannot slip and it cannot ^[c]break down under whoever steps out upon it—a hope] that reaches ^[d]farther and enters into [the very certainty of the Presence] within the veil,^(C)

²⁰ Where Jesus has entered in for us [in advance], a Forerunner having become a High Priest forever after the order (with ^[e]the rank) of Melchizedek.^(D)