6. A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation,
7. to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing.
8. Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
9. For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.
10. They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
11. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”
12. Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
13. this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
14. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”
15. This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
16. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!