¹Then all the officers of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people both small and great, approached, ²and they said to Jeremiah the prophet, “May our plea be admitted before you, and pray to the Lord your God for us, for all this remnant, for we are left with few, from being many, as your eyes see us. ³And may the Lord your God tell us the way by which we should go and the things which we should do.” ⁴And Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. I am about to pray to the Lord your God according to your words, and it will come to pass that I will tell you every word which the Lord answers you. I will not withhold anything from you.” ⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness among us. We will certainly do everything that the Lord your God sends word of to you concerning us. ⁶Whether it is good or bad news, we will obey the Lord our God to whom we send you, in order that it may go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.” ⁷And it came to pass after ten days that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, ⁸and he summoned Johanan the son of Kareah and all the officers of the forces which were with him, and all the people both small and great, ⁹and he said to them, “This is what the Lord God of Israel, to whom you sent me, to present your plea before him, says: ¹⁰‘If you are resolved to live in this land, I will build you up, and I will not pull you down, and I will plant you, and I will not pluck you up, for I will have a change of heart concerning the harm which I have done to you. ¹¹Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whose presence you are fearful. Do not fear him, says the Lord, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. ¹²And I will show you compassion, so that he is compassionate towards you, and he brings you back to your land. ¹³But if you say, «We will not live in this land», so not obeying the Lord your God, ¹⁴saying, «No, instead we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war, and we will not hear the sound of the ramshorn, and we will not have a famine of bread, and it is there that we will live», ¹⁵then hear now the word of the Lord, you remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says: «If you are determinedly resolved to go to Egypt, and you go to take up residence there, ¹⁶then the sword will come, which you fear. It will catch up with you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine which you are concerned about will cling to you there in Egypt, and there you will die. ¹⁷And all the people who resolved to go to Egypt to take up residence there will be the ones who die by the sword and by famine and by a plague, and they will have no-one either escaped or delivered from the harm which I will bring on them. ¹⁸For this is what the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‹When my anger and my fury are poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so will my fury be poured out on you, if you go to Egypt, and you will be an object of cursing and astonishment and vilification and reproach, and you will no longer see this place.› » ’ ¹⁹The Lord has spoken to you, you remnant of Judah. Do not go to Egypt. Know with certainty that I have testified against you today. ²⁰For you have erred in your sentiments, for you sent me to the Lord your God saying, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us, and whatever the Lord our God says, tell us, and we will do it.’ ²¹And I have told you today, but you did not obey the Lord your God, nor anything with which he sent me to you. ²²So now, know with certainty that you will die by the sword and by a famine and by a plague in the place where you wish to go to take up residence.”