3. Pharaoh’s refuge will become your shame,hiding in Egypt’s shadow your disgrace.
4. Though their officials are in Zoan,and their messengers reach Hanes,
5. all will become shamed because of a people who can’t assist them.They are no help; they are no profit;rather, shame and disgrace.
6. An oracle about the beasts in the arid southern plain.Through a land of distress and danger,lioness and roaring lion, viper and flying serpent,they will carry their wealth on donkeys’ shouldersand their treasures on camels’ humps to a people who won’t profit,
7. for Egypt’s help is utterly worthless.Therefore, I call her Rahab Who Sits Still.
8. Now go, write it before them on a tablet,inscribe it on a scroll,so in the future it will endure as a witness.
9. These are rebellious people, lying children,children unwilling to hear the Lord’s teaching,
10. who say to the seers, "Don’t foresee,"and to the visionaries, "Don’t report truthful visions;tell us flattering things;envision deceptions;
11. get out of the way;step off the path;let’s have no more ‘holy one of Israel.’"
12. Therefore, the holy one of Israel says:Because you reject this wordand trust in oppression and cunning and rely on them,
13. your sin will be like a crack in a high wall; it bulges, about to fall:suddenly, in an instant, it breaks!
14. Its breaking is like the breaking of a storage jarthat is totally shattered.No piece from among its fragments will be large enough to take fire from a hearth,or to dip water from a cistern.
15. Therefore, the Lord God,the holy one of Israel, says:In return and rest you will be saved;quietness and trust will be your strength—but you refused.
16. You said,"No! We’ll flee on horses"—therefore, you will indeed flee—"and we’ll ride off; on swift steeds we will ride"—therefore, your pursuers will be swift.
17. One thousand will flee at the threat of one,and at the threat of five you will flee,until you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,like a flag on a hill.
18. Nonetheless, the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you,and will rise up to show you compassion.The Lord is a God of justice;happy are all who wait for him.
19. People in Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. God will certainly be merciful to you. Hearing the sound of your outcry, God will answer you.
20. Though the Lord gives you the bread of distress and the water of oppression, your teacher will no longer hide, but you will see your teacher.
21. If you stray to the right or the left, you will hear a word that comes from behind you: "This is the way; walk in it."
22. You will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-covered priestly vest, and you will scatter them like menstrual rags. "Get out," you will say to them.
23. God will provide rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food the ground produces will be rich and abundant. On that day, your cattle will graze in large pastures.