Jeremiah 25:19

¹³The word that the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt: ¹⁴“Declare in Egypt, publish in Migdol, and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes; say, ‘Stand up, and prepare, for the sword has devoured around you.’ ¹⁵Why are your strong ones swept away? They didn’t stand, because the LORD pushed them. ¹⁶He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another. They said, ‘Arise! Let’s go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.’ ¹⁷They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he has let the appointed time pass by.’ ¹⁸“As I live,” says the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies, “surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel by the sea, so he will come. ¹⁹You daughter who dwells in Egypt, furnish yourself to go into captivity; for Memphis will become a desolation, and will be burned up, without inhabitant. ²⁰“Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; but destruction out of the north has come. It has come. ²¹Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall, for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They didn’t stand, for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation. ²²Its sound will go like the serpent, for they will march with an army, and come against her with axes, as wood cutters. ²³They will cut down her forest,” says the LORD, “though it can’t be searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable. ²⁴The daughter of Egypt will be disappointed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.”

²⁵The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods and her kings, even Pharaoh, and those who trust in him. ²⁶I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants. Afterwards it will be inhabited, as in the days of old,” says the LORD.

⁸Are you better than No-Amon,^[+] who was situated among the rivers,^[+] who had the waters around her, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? ⁹Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers. ¹⁰Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

²Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

¹In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ²“Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. ³Speak and say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’ ⁴I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will make the fish of your rivers stick to your scales. I will bring you up out of the middle of your rivers, with all the fish of your rivers which stick to your scales. ⁵I’ll cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers. You’ll fall on the open field. You won’t be brought together or gathered. I have given you for food to the animals of the earth and to the birds of the sky.

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.”

⁸“‘Therefore the Lord GOD says: “Behold, I will bring a sword on you, and will cut off man and animal from you. ⁹The land of Egypt will be a desolation and a waste. Then they will know that I am the LORD. “‘“Because he has said, ‘The river is mine, and I have made it,’

¹⁰therefore, behold, I am against you and against your rivers. I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia. ¹¹No foot of man will pass through it, nor will any animal foot pass through it. It won’t be inhabited for forty years. ¹²I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the middle of the countries that are desolate. Her cities among the cities that are laid waste will be a desolation forty years. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.”

¹³“‘For the Lord GOD says: “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples where they were scattered. ¹⁴I will reverse the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their birth. There they will be a lowly kingdom. ¹⁵It will be the lowest of the kingdoms. It won’t lift itself up above the nations any more. I will diminish them so that they will no longer rule over the nations. ¹⁶It will no longer be the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to memory, when they turn to look after them. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.”’”

¹⁷It came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ¹⁸“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet he had no wages, nor did his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it. ¹⁹Therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He will carry off her multitude, take her plunder, and take her prey. That will be the wages for his army. ²⁰I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he served, because they worked for me,’ says the Lord GOD.

²¹“In that day I will cause a horn to sprout for the house of Israel, and I will open your mouth among them. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

⁹“Take great stones in your hand and hide them in mortar in the brick work which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah. ¹⁰Tell them, the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne on these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his royal pavilion over them. ¹¹He will come, and will strike the land of Egypt; such as are for death will be put to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword.