Isaiah 31:1

⁷Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

⁵The LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from the LORD.

¹⁶Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.”

⁹How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹³“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water.

¹⁶but you said, “No, for we will flee on horses;” therefore you will flee; and, “We will ride on the swift;” therefore those who pursue you will be swift.

¹³As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of the LORD our God, that we should turn from our iniquities and have discernment in your truth.

¹⁶There is no king saved by the multitude of an army. A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. ¹⁷A horse is a vain thing for safety, neither does he deliver any by his great power.

⁴For the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live; ⁵but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing. ⁶Seek the LORD, and you will live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel. ⁷You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth! ⁸Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name,

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.