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Alliance with Egypt Is Futile

31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
    and who rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
    and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
    or consult the Lord!(A)
Yet he is wise and can bring disaster;
    he does not depart from his words
but will rise against the house of the evildoers
    and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.(B)
The Egyptians are human and not God;
    their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out his hand,
    the helper will stumble, and the one helped will fall,
    and they will all perish together.(C)

For thus the Lord said to me,
“As a lion or a young lion growls over its prey
    and, when a band of shepherds is called out against it,
is not terrified by their shouting
    or daunted at their noise,
so the Lord of hosts will come down
    to fight upon Mount Zion and upon its hill.(D)
Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts
    will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it;
    he will spare and rescue it.”(E)

Turn back to him whom you[a] have deeply betrayed, O people of Israel.(F) For on that day all of you shall throw away your idols of silver and idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.(G)

“Then the Assyrian shall fall by a sword not of mortals,
    and a sword not of humans shall devour him;
he shall flee from the sword,
    and his young men shall be put to forced labor.(H)
His rock shall pass away in terror,
    and his officers desert the standard in panic,”
says the Lord, whose fire is in Zion
    and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.(I)

Footnotes

  1. 31.6 Heb they