Jeremy 46

¹The word of our Lord that was made to Jeremy the Prophet against the Gentiles,

²to Ægypt against the army of Pharao Nechao the king of Ægypt, which was beside the river Euphrates in Charcamis, whom Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon struck, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda.

³Prepare ye shield, & buckler, and go forth to battle.

⁴Yoke horses, & mount ye horsemen: stand in helmets, furbish the spears, put on coats of mail.

⁵What then? I saw them fearful, and turning their backs, their valiants slain: they fled in haste, neither looked they back: terror on every side, saith our Lord.

⁶Let not the swift fly, nor the strong think that he is safe: Toward the north by the river Euphrates they were overcome, and fell down.

⁷Who is this that riseth up as a flood: and as it were of rivers, so his streams do swell?

⁸Ægypt riseth up like a flood, & the waves thereof shall be moved as rivers, & shall say: Rising up I will cover the earth: I will destroy city, and the inhabitants thereof.

⁹Get ye up on horses, & in chariots, & let the valiants come forth, Æthiopia, and the Libyans holding the shield, and the Lydeans taking, and shooting arrows.

¹⁰And that day of our Lord the God of hosts, is a day of revenge, that they may take vengeance of his enemies: the sword shall devour, and be filled, and shall be drunken with their blood: for the victim of our Lord the God of hosts is in the Land of the North by the river Euphrates.

¹¹Go up into Galaad, & take resin o virgin the daughter of Ægypt: thou doest in vain multiply medicines, there shall not be health to thee.

¹²The Gentiles have heard thine ignominy, and thine howling hath filled the earth: because the strong hath stumbled against the strong, and both are fallen together.

¹³The word that our Lord spake to Jeremy the Prophet, concerning this, that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon should come and strike the Land of Ægypt:

¹⁴Tell Ægypt, and make it heard in Magdal, and let it sound in Memphis, and in Taphnis: Say ye: Stand, and prepare thyself: because the sword shall devour those things, that be round about thee.

¹⁵Why is thy valiant become rotten? He stood not: because our Lord hath overthrown him.

¹⁶He hath multiplied them that fall, and man hath fallen against his neighbour, and they shall say: Arise, and let us return to our people, and to the Land of our nativity, from the face of the sword of the dove.

¹⁷Call ye the name of Pharao the king of Ægypt, Tumult, Time hath brought it.

¹⁸I live (saith the King, the Lord of hosts is his name) that as Thabor in the mountains, and as Carmel in the sea, he shall come.

¹⁹Make ye vessels of transmigration o daughter inhabitant of Ægypt: because Memphis shall be in desolation, and shall be forsaken, and shall be inhabitable.

²⁰Ægypt a trim and beautiful heifer: a pricker from the North shall come to her.

²¹Her hirelings also that conversed in the midst of her, as fatted calves are turned, and are fled together, neither could they stand: because the day of their slaughter came upon them, the time of their visitation.

²²Her voice shall sound as if it were of brass, because they shall hasten with an army, & with axes they shall come to her, as it were cutting trees.

²³They have cut down her forest, saith our Lord, which cannot be counted: they are multiplied above locusts, and are without number.

²⁴The daughter of Ægypt is confounded, and delivered into the hand of the people of the North.

²⁵The Lord of hosts the God of Israel hath said: Behold I will visit upon the tumult of Alexandria, and upon Pharao, and upon Ægypt, and upon her gods, and upon her kings, and upon Pharao, and upon them that trust in him.

²⁶And I will give them into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and after these things it shall be inhabited as in the days of old, saith our Lord.

²⁷And thou my servant Jacob fear not, and be not thou afraid Israel: because lo I will save thee from a far, and thy seed out of the land of thy captivity: and Jacob shall return, and rest, and prosper: and there shall be none to terrify him.

²⁸And thou my servant Jacob fear not, saith our Lord: because I am with thee, because I will consume all the nations, to the which I have cast thee out: but thee I will not consume, but I will chasten thee in judgement, neither will I spare thee as innocent.