15. Why have your valiant men become prostrate?They do not stand because the Lord has thrust them down.
16. He made many to fall.Indeed, each one has fallen upon another.Then they said, “Arise and let us go backto our own people and to the land of our nativity,away from the oppressing sword.”
17. They cried there,“Pharaoh king of Egypt is a tumult.He has let the time appointed pass by!”
18. As I live, says the Kingwhose name is the Lord of Hosts,surely as Tabor is among the mountains,and as Carmel by the sea, so he shall come.
19. O daughter dwelling in Egypt,prepare your baggage for captivity,for Memphis will become desolate,it will even be burned down without an inhabitant.
20. Egypt is like a very fair heifer,but destruction comes,it comes out of the north.
21. Also her mercenaries are in her midstlike fat bulls,for they also have turned back and have fled away together.They did not stand their groundbecause the day of their calamity has come upon them,even the time of their punishment.
22. Its sound goes along like a serpent,for they march on as an army,and come against her with axes,as choppers of wood.
23. They have cut down her forest,says the Lord.Surely it will not be found any more,even though they are now more numerous than the grasshoppers,and are innumerable.
24. The daughter of Egypt has been humiliated;she has been delivered into the hand of the people of the north.
25. The Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: See, I will punish Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods and their kings, even Pharaoh and all those who trust in him.
26. And I shall 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. But afterwards it will be inhabited, as in the days of old, says the Lord.
27. But do not fear, O My servant Jacob,and do not be dismayed, O Israel.For I will save you from afar off,and your seed from the land of their captivity;and Jacob shall return and be in rest and at ease,and no one shall make him afraid.
28. Do not fear, O Jacob My servant,says the Lord, for I am with you;for I will make a full end of all the nationswhere I have driven you.However, I will not make a full end of you,but correct you in measure,and I will not leave you wholly unpunished.