1. WOE to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, that you would take counsel, and not of me: and would begin a web, and not by my spirit, that you might add sin upon sill:
2. Who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, hoping for help in the strength of Pharao, and trusting in the shadow of Egypt.
3. And the strength of Pharao shall be to your confusion, and the confidence of the shadow of Egypt to your shame.
4. For thy princes were in Tanis, and thy messengers came even to Hanes.
5. They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them: they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to reproach.
6. The burden of the beasts of the south. In a land of trouble and distress, from whence come the lioness, and the lion, the viper and the flying basilisk, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of beasts, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall not be able to profit them.
7. For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this: It is pride only, sit still.
8. Now therefore go in and write for them upon box, and note it diligently in a book, and it shall be in the latter days for a testimony for ever.
9. For it is a people that provoketh to wrath, and lying children, children that will not hear the law of God.
10. Who say to the seers: See not: and to them that behold: Behold not for us those things that are right: speak unto us pleasant things, see errors for us.
11. Take away from me the way, turn away the path from me, let the Holy One of Israel cease from before us.
12. Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because you have rejected this word, and have trusted in oppression and tumult, and have leaned upon it:
13. Therefore shall this iniquity be to you as a breach that falleth, and is found wanting in a high wall, for the destruction thereof shall come on a sudden, when it is not looked for.
14. And it shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a sherd be found of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the hearth, or a, little water be drawn out of the pit.
15. For thus saith the Lord God the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your strength be. And you would not:
16. But have said: No, but we will flee to horses: therefore shall you flee. And we will mount upon swift ones: therefore shall they be swifter that shall pursue after you.