⁹I said to them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me with your request has said, ¹⁰‘If you are willing to go on living in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not pull you up. The destruction I brought on you has caused me great sorrow. ¹¹Stop being afraid of the king of Babylonia. I am with you, and I will rescue you from his power. ¹²Because I am merciful, I will make him have mercy on you and let you go back home. I, the Lord, have spoken.’

^13–15“But you people who are left in Judah must not disobey the Lord your God and refuse to live in this land. You must not say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we won’t face war any more or hear the call to battle or go hungry.’ If you say this, then the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you are determined to go and live in Egypt, ¹⁶then the war that you fear will overtake you, and the hunger you dread will follow you, and you will die there in Egypt. ¹⁷All the people who are determined to go and live in Egypt will die either in war or of starvation or disease. Not one of them will survive, not one will escape the disaster that I am going to bring on them.’

¹⁸“The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will be a horrifying sight; people will treat you with scorn and use your name as a curse. You will never see this place again.’ ”

¹⁹Then I continued, “The Lord has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. And so I warn you now ²⁰that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the Lord our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands. ²¹And now I have told you, but you are disobeying everything that the Lord our God sent me to tell you. ²²So then, remember this: you will die in war or of starvation or disease in the land where you want to go and live.”

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