1When Jeremiah finished telling the people all the words the Lord, their God, sent to them, 2Azariah, son of Hoshaiah, Johanan, son of Kareah, and all the others had the insolence to say to Jeremiah: “You lie; the Lord, our God, did not send you to tell us, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there.’ 3Baruch, son of Neriah, is inciting you against us, to hand us over to the Chaldeans to be killed or exiled to Babylon.”a

4So Johanan, son of Kareah, and the rest of the leaders and the people did not listen to the voice of the Lord to stay in the land of Judah.b 5Instead, Johanan, son of Kareah, and the military leaders took along all the remnant of Judah who had been dispersed among the nations and then had returned to dwell in the land of Judah: 6men, women, and children, the princesses and everyone whom Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, had consigned to Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; also Jeremiah, the prophet, and Baruch, son of Neriah.c 7They went to Egypt—they did not listen to the voice of the Lord—and came to Tahpanhes.d

Jeremiah in Egypt. 8The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes: 9Take some large stones in your hand and set them in mortar in the terrace at the entrance to the house of Pharaoh in Tahpanhes, while the Judahites watch. 10Then say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I will send for my servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He will place his throne upon these stones which I, Jeremiah, have set up, and stretch his canopy above them.e 11He shall come and strike the land of Egypt: with death, those marked for death; with exile, those marked for exile; with the sword, those marked for the sword.f 12He shall set fire to the temples of Egypt’s gods, burn the gods and carry them off. He shall pick the land of Egypt clean, as a shepherd picks lice off his cloak, and then depart victorious.g 13He shall smash the obelisks at the Temple of the Sun in the land of Egypt and destroy with fire the temples of the Egyptian gods.