When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words
of the LORD their God, with which the LORD their God had sent him
to them, Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah
and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie.
The LORD our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to
live there,’ but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us,
to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us
or take us into exile in Babylon.” So Johanan the son of Kareah and
all the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey
the voice of the LORD, to remain in the land of Judah. But Johanan
the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the
remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from
all the nations to which they had been driven—the men, the women,
the children, the princesses, and every person whom Nebuzaradan the
captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, son
of Shaphan; also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah.
And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the
voice of the LORD. And they arrived at Tahpanhes.
Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes: “Take in
your hands large stones and hide them in the mortar in the pavement
that is at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes, in the
sight of the men of Judah, and say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of
hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take
Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will set his
throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread
his royal canopy over them. He shall come and strike the land of
Egypt, giving over to the pestilence those who are doomed to the
pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to
the sword those who are doomed to the sword. I shall kindle a fire
in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and
carry them away captive. And he shall clean the land of Egypt as a
shepherd cleans his cloak of vermin, and he shall go away from
there in peace. He shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is
in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall
burn with fire.’”
