4. Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you; behold, I will pray to Yahweh your God according to your words; and it shall happen that whatever thing Yahweh shall answer you, I will declare it to you; I will keep nothing back from you.”
5. Then they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God shall send you to us.
6. Whether it is good, or whether it is bad, we will obey the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of Yahweh our God.”
7. After ten days, Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah.
8. Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest,
9. and said to them, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him, says:
10. ‘If you will still live in this land, then I will build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you.
11. Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don’t be afraid of him,’ says Yahweh: ‘for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand.
12. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.
13. “‘But if you say, “We will not dwell in this land;” so that you don’t obey Yahweh your God’s voice,
14. saying, “No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:”’
15. now therefore hear Yahweh’s word, O remnant of Judah: Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there;
16. then it shall happen, that the sword, which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, shall follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you shall die there.