Jeremiah 17:5

⁸It is better to take refuge in the LORD, than to put confidence in man. ⁹It is better to take refuge in the LORD, than to put confidence in princes.

³Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help. ⁴His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.

²²Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?

⁸An arm of flesh is with him, but the LORD our God is with us to help us and to fight our battles.” The people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

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. ⁴For the LORD says to me, “As the lion and the young lion growling over his prey, if a multitude of shepherds is called together against him, will not be dismayed at their voice, nor abase himself for their noise, so the LORD of Armies will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its heights. ⁵As birds hovering, so the LORD of Armies will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it. He will pass over and preserve it.” ⁶Return to him from whom you have deeply revolted, children of Israel. ⁷For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold—sin which your own hands have made for you.

⁸“The Assyrian will fall by the sword, not of man; and the sword, not of mankind, shall devour him. He will flee from the sword, and his young men will become subject to forced labor. ⁹His rock will pass away by reason of terror, and his princes will be afraid of the banner,” says the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.

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.

⁶Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

⁹Surely men of low degree are just a breath, and men of high degree are a lie. In the balances they will go up. They are together lighter than a breath.

²¹For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

⁶“‘“All the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. ⁷When they took hold of you by your hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders. When they leaned on you, you broke and paralyzed all of their thighs.”