Jeremiah 42
42
1Johanan, Jezaniah,#42.1 Jezaniah: Hebrew “Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah”; one ancient translation “Azariah son of Hoshaiah” (see also 43.2 and the note there). the other army officers, and everyone else in the group, came to me 2and said, “Please, Jeremiah, pray to the Lord your God for us. Judah used to have many people, but as you can see, only a few of us are left. 3Ask the Lord to tell us where he wants us to go and what he wants us to do.”
4“All right,” I answered, “I will pray to the Lord your God, and I will tell you everything he says.”
5They answered, “The Lord himself will be our witness that we promise to do whatever he says, 6even if it isn't what we want to do. We will obey the Lord so that all will go well for us.”
7Ten days later, the Lord gave me an answer for 8Johanan, the officers, and the other people. So I called them together 9and told them that the Lord God of Israel had said:
You asked Jeremiah to pray and find out what you should do. 10I am sorry that I had to punish you, and so I now tell you to stay here in Judah, where I will plant you and build you up, instead of tearing you down and uprooting you. 11Don't be afraid of the King of Babylonia. I will protect you from him, 12and I will even force him to have mercy on you and give back your farms.
13But you might keep on saying, “We won't stay here in Judah, and we won't obey the Lord our God. 14We are going to Egypt, where there is plenty of food and no danger of war.”
15People of Judah, you survived when the Babylonian army attacked. Now you are planning to move to Egypt, and if you do go, this is what will happen. 16-17You are afraid of war, starvation, and disease here in Judah, but they will follow you to Egypt and kill you there. None of you will survive the disasters I will send.
18I, the Lord, was angry with the people of Jerusalem and punished them. And if you go to Egypt, I will be angry and punish you the same way. You will never again see your homeland. People will be horrified at what I do to you, and they will use the name of your city as a curse word.
Jeremiah Gives a Warning
19I told the people:
You escaped the disaster that struck Judah, but now the Lord warns you to stay away from Egypt. 20You asked me to pray and find out what the Lord our God wants you to do, and you promised to obey him. But that was a terrible mistake, 21because now that I have given you the Lord's answer, you refuse to obey him. 22And so, you will die in Egypt from war, hunger, and disease.
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Jeremiah 42: CEVDCI
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 42
42
The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray for them
1Then all the army leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah#42.1 One ancient translation (see also 43.2) Azariah; Hebrew Jezaniah. son of Hoshaiah, came with people of every class 2and said to me, “Please do what we ask you! Pray to the LORD our God for us. Pray for all of us who have survived. Once there were many of us; but now only a few of us are left, as you can see. 3Pray that the LORD our God will show us the way we should go and what we should do.”
4I answered, “Very well, then. I will pray to the LORD our God, just as you have asked, and whatever he says, I will tell you. I will not keep back anything from you.”
5Then they said to me, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not obey all the commands that the LORD our God gives you for us. 6Whether it pleases us or not, we will obey the LORD our God, to whom we are asking you to pray. All will go well with us if we obey him.”
The LORD's Answer to Jeremiah's Prayer
7Ten days later the LORD spoke to me; 8so I called together Johanan, all the army leaders who were with him, and all the other people. 9I said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me with your request has said, 10‘If you are willing to go on living in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not pull you up. The destruction I brought on you has caused me great sorrow. 11Stop being afraid of the king of Babylonia. I am with you, and I will rescue you from his power. 12Because I am merciful, I will make him have mercy on you and let you go back home. I, the LORD, have spoken.’
13-15“But you people who are left in Judah must not disobey the LORD your God and refuse to live in this land. You must not say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we won't face war any more or hear the call to battle or go hungry.’ If you say this, then the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you are determined to go and live in Egypt, 16then the war that you fear will overtake you, and the hunger you dread will follow you, and you will die there in Egypt. 17All the people who are determined to go and live in Egypt will die either in war or of starvation or disease. Not one of them will survive, not one will escape the disaster that I am going to bring on them.’
18“The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will be a horrifying sight; people will treat you with scorn and use your name as a curse. You will never see this place again.’ ”
19Then I continued, “The LORD has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. And so I warn you now 20that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the LORD our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands. 21And now I have told you, but you are disobeying everything that the LORD our God sent me to tell you. 22So then, remember this: you will die in war or of starvation or disease in the land where you want to go and live.”
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Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.