You kept the promise that you swore on oath to their ancestors. ¹  You gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. ² 

He will come and attack Egypt. Those who are destined to die of disease will die of disease. Those who are destined to be carried off into exile will be carried off into exile. Those who are destined to die in war will die in war. ¹ 

Egypt rises like the Nile, like its streams turbulent at flood stage. Egypt says, ‘I will arise and cover the earth. I will destroy cities and the people who inhabit them.’

The Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about Nebuchadnezzar coming to attack the land of Egypt. ¹ 

I will make many stumble. ¹  They will fall over one another in their hurry to flee. ²  They will say, ‘Get up! Let’s go back to our own people. Let’s go back to our homelands because the enemy is coming to destroy us.’ ³ 

When his voice thunders, the waters in the heavens roar. He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain. He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it.

Prepare the nations to do battle against her. ¹  Prepare the kings of the Medes. Prepare their governors and all their leaders. ²  Prepare all the countries they rule to do battle against her. ³ 

The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ¹  For the Lord will carry out his plan. He plans to make the land of Babylonia ²  a wasteland where no one lives. ³ 

א (Alef) Alas! ¹  The Lord ²  has covered Daughter Zion ³  with his anger. ⁴  He has thrown down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he did not protect ⁵  his temple ⁶  when he displayed his anger. ⁷ 

ל (Lamed) Neither the kings of the earth nor the people of the lands ¹  ever thought ²  that enemy or foe would enter the gates ³  of Jerusalem. ⁴ 

But I will throw my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans ¹  (but he will not see it), ²  and there he will die. ³ 

Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the sovereign Lord.

“Son of man, say to her: ‘You are a land that receives no rain ¹  or showers in the day of my anger.’ ² 

wearing belts on their waists and flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, the image of Babylonians ¹  whose native land is Chaldea.

So look, I am about to open up Moab’s flank, ¹  eliminating the cities, ²  including its frontier cities, ³  the beauty of the land – Beth Jeshimoth, Baal Meon, and Kiriathaim.

Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom on account of your splendor. I threw you down to the ground; I placed you before kings, that they might see you.

The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am the Lord. Because he said, “The Nile is mine and I made it,”

I am against ¹  you and your waterways. I will turn the land of Egypt into an utter desolate ruin from Migdol ²  to Syene, ³  as far as the border with Ethiopia.

I have given him the land of Egypt as his compensation for attacking Tyre ¹ , because they did it for me, declares the sovereign Lord.

I will dry up the waterways and hand the land over to ¹  evil men. I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners. I, the Lord, have spoken!