The Bible

Jeremiah Chapter 42

¹Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest, came near, ²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do see us: ³that Yahweh your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do.

⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray to Yahweh your God according to your words; and whatever thing Yahweh shall answer you, I will declare it to you; I will keep nothing back from you.

⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don't do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God shall send you to us. ⁶Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of Yahweh our God.

⁷After ten days, Yahweh's word came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest, ⁹and said to them, "Yahweh the God of Israel says, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him: ¹⁰If you will still live in this land, then I will build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. ¹¹Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don't be afraid of him', says Yahweh, 'for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. ¹²I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.

¹³But if you say, We will not dwell in this land; so that you don't obey the voice of Yahweh your God, ¹⁴saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: ¹⁵now therefore hear the word of Yahweh, O remnant of Judah: Yahweh says of Armies, the God of Israel, If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there; ¹⁶then the sword, which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, shall follow close behind you there in Egypt; and there you shall die. ¹⁷So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there: they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them. ¹⁸For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, "As my anger and my wrath has been poured forth on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my wrath be poured forth on you, when you shall enter into Egypt; and you shall be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.

¹⁹Yahweh has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah, Don't you go into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified to you today. ²⁰For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and exactly as Yahweh our God shall say, so declare to us, and we will do it: ²¹and I have today declared it to you; but you have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh your God in anything for which he has sent me to you. ²²Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place where you desire to go to live there.