Ezekiel 17:9

¹⁰Yes, behold, being planted, will it prosper? Won’t it utterly wither when the east wind touches it? It will wither in the ground where it grew.”’”

⁵and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says the LORD, “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper”’?”

⁴‘The LORD, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls; and I will gather them into the middle of this city. ⁵I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation. ⁶I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal. They will die of a great pestilence. ⁷Afterward,” says the LORD, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.”’

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they don’t look to the Holy One of Israel, and they don’t seek the LORD! ²Yet he also is wise, and will bring disaster, and will not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of those who work iniquity. ³Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, both he who helps shall stumble, and he who is helped shall fall, and they all shall be consumed together.

⁷Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. Now the Chaldeans were against the city all around. The men of war went toward the Arabah, ⁸but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁹Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him. ¹⁰The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He also killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah. ¹¹He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

¹“Woe to the rebellious children”, says the LORD, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; ²who set out to go down into Egypt without asking for my advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt! ³Therefore the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. ⁴For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors have come to Hanes. ⁵They shall all be ashamed because of a people that can’t profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.”

⁶The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.

⁷For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.

⁴Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and the king went by the way of the Arabah. ⁵But the Chaldean army pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁶Then they captured the king and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they passed judgment on him. ⁷They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

¹⁵But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and many people. Will he prosper? Will he who does such things escape? Will he break the covenant, and still escape?

¹⁶“‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the middle of Babylon he will die. ¹⁷Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company won’t help him in the war, when they cast up mounds and build forts to cut off many persons.

¹²Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, don’t fight against the LORD, the God of your fathers; for you will not prosper.”

⁸“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. ⁹I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. ¹⁰I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”