Jeremiah 42
42
What You Fear Will Catch Up with You
1-3All the army officers, led by Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, accompanied by all the people, small and great, came to Jeremiah the prophet and said, “We have a request. Please listen. Pray to your God for us, what’s left of us. You can see for yourself how few we are! Pray that your God will tell us the way we should go and what we should do.”
4Jeremiah the prophet said, “I hear your request. And I will pray to your God as you have asked. Whatever God says, I’ll pass on to you. I’ll tell you everything, holding nothing back.”
5-6They said to Jeremiah, “Let God be our witness, a true and faithful witness against us, if we don’t do everything that your God directs you to tell us. Whether we like it or not, we’ll do it. We’ll obey whatever our God tells us. Yes, count on us. We’ll do it.”
7-8Ten days later God’s Message came to Jeremiah. He called together Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, including all the people, regardless of how much clout they had.
9-12He then spoke: “This is the Message from God, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer. He says, ‘If you are ready to stick it out in this land, I will build you up and not drag you down, I will plant you and not pull you up like a weed. I feel deep compassion on account of the doom I have visited on you. You don’t have to fear the king of Babylon. Your fears are for nothing. I’m on your side, ready to save and deliver you from anything he might do. I’ll pour mercy on you. What’s more, he will show you mercy! He’ll let you come back to your very own land.’
13-17“But do not say, ‘We’re not staying around this place,’ refusing to obey the command of your God and saying instead, ‘No! We’re off to Egypt, where things are peaceful—no wars, no attacking armies, plenty of food. We’re going to live there.’ If what’s left of Judah is headed down that road, then listen to God’s Message. This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: ‘If you have determined to go to Egypt and make that your home, then the very wars you fear will catch up with you in Egypt and the starvation you dread will track you down in Egypt. You’ll die there! Every last one of you who is determined to go to Egypt and make it your home will either be killed, starve, or get sick and die. No survivors, not one! No one will escape the doom that I’ll bring upon you.’
18“This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: ‘In the same way that I swept the citizens of Jerusalem away with my anger and wrath, I’ll do the same thing all over again in Egypt. You’ll end up being cursed, reviled, ridiculed, and mocked. And you’ll never see your homeland again.’
19-20“God has plainly told you, you leftovers from Judah, ‘Don’t go to Egypt.’ Could anything be plainer? I warn you this day that you are living out a fantasy. You’re making a fatal mistake.
“Didn’t you just now send me to your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to our God. Tell us everything that God says and we’ll do it all’?
21-22“Well, now I’ve told you, told you everything he said, and you haven’t obeyed a word of it, not a single word of what your God sent me to tell you. So now let me tell you what will happen next: You’ll be killed, you’ll starve to death, you’ll get sick and die in the wonderful country where you’ve determined to go and live.”
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Jeremiah 42: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Jeremiah 42
42
The Remnant Asks Jeremiah to Pray to Yahweh for Direction
1Then all the commanders of the armies, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the smallest to the greatest, approached 2and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “May our plea please fall before you,#Literally “to the face of you” and pray for us to Yahweh your God, for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes are seeing us. 3And let Yahweh your God inform us the way in which we should go and the thing that we should do.” 4And Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard. Look, I am going to pray to Yahweh your God according to your words, and then#Literally “and it will happen” all the words#Hebrew “word” that Yahweh answers you I will tell you; I will not withhold from you a word.” 5Then they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be against us as a true and faithful witness#Literally “a witness of faithfulness and trustworthy” if we do not do according to all the words#Hebrew “word” that Yahweh sends you for us. 6Whether good or bad, we will listen to the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well with us when we listen to the voice of Yahweh our God.”
The Remnant Rejects the Word of Yahweh
7And then#Literally “And it was” at the end of ten days the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. 8And he summoned Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the commanders of the armies who were with him, and all the people from the smallest to the greatest, 9and said to them, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to cause your plea to fall before him:#Literally “to the face of him” 10‘If only you will stay in this land, then I will build you and I will not tear you down, and I will plant you and I will not pluck you up, for I relent of the disaster that I have brought to you. 11You must not be afraid of#Literally “from the face of” the king of Babylon whom you are afraid of.#Literally “in fear from the presence of him” You must not be afraid of him,’ declares#Literally “a declaration of” Yahweh, ‘for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. 12And I will show you compassion, and he will have compassion on you and will restore you to your soil.
13But if you are saying, “We will not stay in this land,” so as to not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, 14saying, “No, for we will go to the land of Egypt where we will not see war, and we will not hear the sound of a horn, and we will not be hungry for bread, and there we will stay,” 15then therefore#Literally “to thus” hear the word of Yahweh, O remnant of Judah. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: “If you are determined#Literally “If you indeed set your face” to go to Egypt, and you go to dwell as aliens there, 16then it will be that the sword that you are in fear of will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine that you are anxious of will pursue after you there into Egypt, and there you will die. 17So all the people who are determined#Literally “have set their faces” to go to Egypt to dwell as aliens there will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague, and there will not be for them an escapee or a survivor from the disaster that I am bringing upon them.” 18For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: “As my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will pour out on you at your going to Egypt, and you will become a curse, and a horror, and a curse formula, and a disgrace, and you will no longer see this place.” ’
19Yahweh has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, ‘You must not go to Egypt.’ You must certainly know that I have warned you today#Literally “the day” 20that you have made a fatal mistake,#Literally “you have caused them to err for your lives” for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying,#Literally “to say” ‘Pray for us to Yahweh our God, and all that Yahweh our God says, so tell us and we will do it.’#Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation 21So I have told you today,#Literally “the day” and you have not listened to the voice of Yahweh your God, or of anything#Literally “all” that he sent me for you. 22Now then, certainly you must know that by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague you will die in the place where you desire to go, to dwell as aliens there.”
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