16. He made many fall;Yes, one fell upon another.And they said, ‘Arise!Let us go back to our own peopleAnd to the land of our nativityFrom the oppressing sword.’
17. They cried there,‘Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is but a noise.He has passed by the appointed time!’
18. “As I live,” says the King,Whose name is the Lord of hosts,“Surely as Tabor is among the mountainsAnd as Carmel by the sea, so he shall come.
19. O you daughter dwelling in Egypt,Prepare yourself to go into captivity!For Noph shall be waste and desolate, without inhabitant.
20. “Egypt is a very pretty heifer,But destruction comes, it comes from the north.
21. Also her mercenaries are in her midst like fat bulls,For they also are turned back,They have fled away together.They did not stand,For the day of their calamity had come upon them,The time of their punishment.
22. Her noise shall go like a serpent,For they shall march with an armyAnd come against her with axes,Like those who chop wood.
23. “They shall cut down her forest,” says the Lord,“Though it cannot be searched,Because they are innumerable,And more numerous than grasshoppers.
24. The daughter of Egypt shall be ashamed;She shall be delivered into the handOf the people of the north.”
25. The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will bring punishment on Amon of No, and Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and their kings—Pharaoh and those who trust in him.
26. And I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their lives, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of his servants. Afterward it shall be inhabited as in the days of old,” says the Lord.
27. “But do not fear, O My servant Jacob,And do not be dismayed, O Israel!For behold, I will save you from afar,And your offspring from the land of their captivity;Jacob shall return, have rest and be at ease;No one shall make him afraid.
28. Do not fear, O Jacob My servant,” says the Lord,“For I am with you;For I will make a complete end of all the nationsTo which I have driven you,But I will not make a complete end of you.I will rightly correct you,For I will not leave you wholly unpunished.”