30 Do Not Go Down to Egypt

30:1 “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance,[1] but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; ²who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! ³Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. ⁴For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, ⁵everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.” ⁶An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. ⁷Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”

A Rebellious People

⁸And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.^[2]⁹For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; ¹⁰who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, ¹¹leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” ¹²Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, ¹³therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; ¹⁴and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

¹⁵For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning[3] and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, ¹⁶and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift. ¹⁷A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.

The Lord Will Be Gracious

¹⁸Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. ²⁰And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ²¹And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. ²²Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

²³And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, ²⁴and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. ²⁵And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. ²⁶Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

²⁷Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;^[4]his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire; ²⁸his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.

²⁹You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. ³⁰And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. ³¹The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. ³²And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. ³³For a burning place[5] has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.

31 Woe to Those Who Go Down to Egypt

31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! ²And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity. ³The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.

⁴For thus the Lord said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight[6] on Mount Zion and on its hill. ⁵Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.” ⁶Turn to him from whom people[7] have deeply revolted, O children of Israel. ⁷For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you. ⁸“And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor. ⁹His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

32 A King Will Reign in Righteousness

32:1 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. ²Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. ³Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention. ⁴The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly. ⁵The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable. ⁶For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink. ⁷As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right. ⁸But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.

Complacent Women Warned of Disaster

⁹Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. ¹⁰In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come. ¹¹Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist. ¹²Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, ¹³for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city. ¹⁴For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; ¹⁵until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. ¹⁶Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. ¹⁷And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust^[8]forever. ¹⁸My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. ¹⁹And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low. ²⁰Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

[1] Hebrew who weave a web [2] Some Hebrew manuscripts, Syriac, Targum, Vulgate, and Greek versions; Masoretic Text forever and ever [3] Or repentance [4] Hebrew in weight of uplifted clouds [5] Or For Topheth [6] The Hebrew words for hosts and to fight sound alike [7] Hebrew they [8] Or security