The Lord declares, “How horrible it will be for those rebellious children. They carry out plans, but not mine. They make alliances against my will. They pile sin on top of sin.
Now, look! When you trust Egypt, you’re trusting a broken stick for a staff. If you lean on it, it stabs your hand and goes through it. This is what Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) is like for everyone who trusts him.
Your rulers are rebels, friends with thieves. They all love bribes and run after gifts. They never defend orphans. They don’t notice the widows’ pleas.
“How horrible it will be for a nation that sins. ⌞Its⌟ people are loaded down with guilt. They are descendants of evildoers and destructive children. They have abandoned the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have turned their backs on him.
You say, “We made a treaty with death and an agreement with the grave. When the overwhelming disaster passes by, it won’t matter to us, because we have taken refuge in our lies, and falsehood is our hiding place.”
How horrible it will be for those who try to hide their plans from the Lord. Their deeds are done in the dark, and they say, “No one can see us” and “No one can recognize us.”
How horrible it will be for those who go to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who depend on many chariots, who depend on very strong war horses. They don’t look to the Holy One of Israel. They don’t seek the Lord.
Then each ruler will be like a shelter from the wind and a hiding place from the rain. They will be like streams on parched ground and the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
The Lord will create a cloud of smoke during the day and a glowing flame of fire during the night over the whole area of Mount Zion and over the assembly. His glory will cover everything.
People will say to you, “Ask for help from the mediums and the fortunetellers, who whisper and mutter.” Shouldn’t people ask their God for help instead? Why should they ask the dead to help the living?
You won’t gain anything by going to Egypt to drink water from the Nile River. You won’t gain anything by going to Assyria to drink water from the Euphrates River.
“This is what the Lord God of Israel says: Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to get advice from me: ‘Pharaoh’s army has come out to help you. But it will go back to Egypt, its own land.
He said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the people of Israel. They are people from a nation that has rebelled against me. They and their ancestors have rebelled against me to this day.
The nation of Israel will never trust Egypt again. The people of Israel will remember how wrong they were whenever they turned to Egypt ⌞for help⌟. Then they will know that I am the Almighty Lord.’ ”
I will make you as hard as a diamond, harder than stone. Don’t be afraid of them. Don’t be terrified in their presence, even though they are rebellious people.”
They keep on sinning more and more. They make idols from silver for themselves. These idols are skillfully made. All of them are the work of craftsmen. People say this about the Israelites: “They offer human sacrifices and kiss calf-shaped idols.”
“How horrible it will be for these people. They have run away from me. They must be destroyed because they’ve rebelled against me. I want to reclaim them, but they tell lies about me.
Since you are stubborn and don’t want to change the way you think and act, you are adding to the anger that God will have against you on that day when God vents his anger. At that time God will reveal that his decisions are fair.
Someone may hear the conditions of this promise. He may think that he is so blessed that he can say, “I’ll be safe even if I go my own stubborn way. After all, ⌞the Lord would never⌟ sweep away well-watered ground along with dry ground.”