The king of Assyria will carry away prisoners from Egypt and Cush. Old people and young people will be led away naked and barefoot, with their buttocks bare. So the Egyptians will be shamed.
How dare you prophesy in the name of the Lord that this Temple will be destroyed like the one at Shiloh! How dare you say that Jerusalem will become a desert without anyone to live in it!” And all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the Temple of the Lord.
I will give the order, says the Lord, to bring the Babylonian army back to Jerusalem. It will fight against Jerusalem, capture it, set it on fire, and burn it down. I will destroy the towns in Judah so that they become ruins where no one lives!”
Jeremiah received a message from the Lord for all the Jews living in Egypt—in the cities of Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and in southern Egypt. This was the message:
“Announce this message in Egypt, and preach it in Migdol. Preach it also in the cities of Memphis and Tahpanhes: ‘Get ready for war, because the battle is all around you.’
“You people living in the town of Dibon, come down from your place of honor and sit on the dry ground, because the destroyer of Moab has come against you. And he has destroyed your strong, walled cities.
I will make the land of Egypt the most deserted country of all. Her cities will be the most deserted of all ruined cities for forty years. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, spreading them among the countries.
“ ‘This is what the Lord God says: I will destroy the idols and take away the statues of gods from the city of Memphis. There will no longer be a leader in Egypt, and I will spread fear through the land of Egypt.
Even if the people are not destroyed, Egypt will capture them; Memphis will bury them. Weeds will grow over their silver treasures, and thorns will drive them out of their tents.
How terrible it will be for you who live by the Mediterranean Sea, you Philistines! The word of the Lord is against you, Canaan, land of the Philistines. “I will destroy you so that no one will be left.”