:B:1 Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord
2 They go down to Egypt without my advice to take refuge in Pharaohs protection and seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.
3 Therefore Pharaohs protection will be your shame and Egypts shadow your confusion.
4 When your officials reach Zoan and your ambassadors come to Hanes, 5 they will all be put to shame by a people who can do nothing for them, who can give neither help nor benefit but only disgrace and reproach.
6An oracle concerning the beasts of the Negeb:
6 Through a distressed and troubled land
6 of lions and lionesses,
6 of vipers and darting snakes,
6 the envoys carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses,
6 their treasures upon the humps of camels,
6 to a people that is of no use to them.
7 Egypt! An illusory and useless help. Because of that I call it: Scarecrow, the Do-Nothing.
Just tell us pleasant things
8 Now go, write it down as a record for them, inscribe it on a scroll, so it will be an everlasting accusation against them.
9 These are a rebellious people, their children deceitful. They do not listen to Yahwehs advice.
10 To the seers they say, See not, and to the prophets, Do not prophesy the truth. Just tell us pleasant things
12 Therefore the Holy One of Israel says, Be cause you despised this message and resorted instead to lies and abusive taxes, choosing to stay with it, 13 therefore this guilt of yours will be like a breach on a high wall, cracked and bulging, ready to fall
14 It will be like the breaking of a potters vessel, smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not one shard re mains big enough to scoop cinder out of the hearth or ladle water out of the cistern.
15 For thus said the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel: Conversion and calmness would have been your salvation, quietness and trust your strength.
16 But instead you said, No, we will flee on horses! Very well then, flee! And you added, We will ride on swift steeds. Your pursuer will be swifter.
17 At the threat of one, a thousand will flee, at the threat of five all will flee, till what is left of you will be like a staff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.
The coming prosperity
:B:18 Yet Yahweh waits to give you grace
19 O people of Zion, who dwell in Jeru salem, you will weep no more. When you cry, he will listen
20 When the Lord has given you the bread of anguish and the water of distress, he, your teacher will hide no longer. 21 Your own eyes will see him, and your ear will listen to his words behind you: This is the way, walk in it.
22 You will see the uncleanliness of your idols and images overlaid with silver and gold. You will throw them out like a menstrual cloth. Away with you then! you will say to them.
23 He will then give rain for the seed you sow and make the harvest abundant from the crops you grow. On that day your cattle will graze in wide pas tures. 24 Your beasts of burden will eat silage tossed to them with pitchfork and shovel.
25 For on the day of the great slaughter, when fortresses fall, streams of water will flow on every mountain and lofty hill.
26 The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven times greater, like the light of seven days, when Yahweh binds up the wounds of his people and heals the bruises inflicted by his blows.