Jeremiah

3 Draw up the line of buckler and shield, and forward to the charge! 4 Hitch the ponies and mount the horses and stand in order with helmet on head! brighten up the pikes, put on the hauberks! 5 How comes it I see those dismayed, falling back, and their crack fighters broken, off on the dead run, never facing about!—terror on every side, quoth Jehovah! 6* The swift man shall not get off, and the brave man not save himself; northward on the bank of the river Euphrates they have stumbled, they have fallen. 7 Who is this that comes up like the Nile, whose water rolls like the rivers? 8 It is Egypt comes up like the Nile, its water rolls like the rivers, and it thinks “I will go up, will conquer land, will destroy a city and those that live in it.” 9* Come up, ponies, and run wild, chariots; and out with the crack fighters, Nubia and Put that use the shield, the Ludites that bend the bow; 10 but our God Jehovah has that day for a day of vengeance, to avenge himself on his foes, and the sword shall eat its fill and drink freely of their blood, because the Lord Jehovah of Armies is holding a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. 11 Go up to Gilead and get balm, maiden daughter of Egypt; it is of no use that you have tried so many treatments, it does not heal over. 12 Nations have heard of your ignominy, and your clamor fills the earth, because champion stumbled over champion, they both fell together.

13 The word that Jehovah spoke to the prophet Jeremiah of the king of Babylon’s coming to strike Egypt:

14 Announce it at Migdol and publish it at Memphis: say “Take up your positions and get ready, because swords have eaten around you. 15 How is it your champion bull Apis has taken flight? he did not stand his ground because Jehovah shouldered him. 16 There are many stumbling; yes, one man falls against another; and they say ‘Up, let us go back to our own people and our native country for fear of the ruthless sword.’ 17* They call the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, Loud-but-Too-Late. 18 As I live, quoth the King whose name is Jehovah of Armies, he will come like Tabor among the mountains, like Carmel on the sea. 19 Get up an outfit for going into exile, long-settled daughter of Egypt, for Memphis will become a desolation and be ruined past living in. 20 Egypt is a pretty heifer; a gadfly from the north has come at her. 21 The hired men she has within her too are like stall-fed calves, because they too have together turned and run, made no stand, because their day of calamity has come upon them, their time of punishment; 22 they will go off with a sound like a snake going through sand. They have come to her with axes like woodcutters; 23* they have cut her greenwood, quoth Jehovah, endless as it was, for there are more of them than of the grasshoppers, their number is inexpressible. 24 The daughter of Egypt is put to shame, is given into the hands of a northern people. 25 Israel’s God Jehovah of Armies has said ‘Here I am going to punish Amon in Thebes, and the Pharaoh and those who trust to him, 26* and give them into the hands of those who are looking for their lives and into the hands of King Nebucadressar of Babylon and of his soldiers; and after that she shall live a settled life as of old,’ quoth Jehovah.

27 “But as for you, do not be afraid, my servant Jacob, and do not be dismayed, Israel, because here I am going to save you out of distant places and your stock out of the country of their captivity; and Jacob shall come back to living quietly and at ease with nobody to alarm him. 28 Do not you be afraid, my servant Jacob, quoth Jehovah, for I am with you; for I will make an end among all the nations where I banished you, but not make an end of you, but discipline you duly and not let you off.”