Jeremiah 42:10-20

10 'If you will stay in this land, then I will build you up, not pull you down; I will plant you and not uproot you; for I am relenting from the calamity I inflicted on you.

11 Don't be afraid of the king of Bavel - of whom you are afraid. Don't be afraid of him,' says ADONAI, 'for I am with you to save you and to rescue you from his power.

12 I will take pity on you, so that he will take pity on you and cause you to return to your own land.

13 "But if you say, 'We will not stay in this land,' thereby not heeding what ADONAI your God is saying,

14 and instead say, 'No, we will go to the land of Egypt; because there we will not see war or hear the shofar sounding its alarm or be short of food; so we'll stay there';

15 then hear what ADONAI says, remnant of Y'hudah - this is what ADONAI-Tzva'ot, the God of Isra'el, says: 'If you are determined to go to Egypt and stay there,

16 the sword, of which you are afraid, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, of which you are afraid, will pursue you relentlessly there in Egypt; and there you will die.

17 This is how it will be for all the people determined to go to Egypt and stay there - they will die by sword, famine and plague; none of them will remain or escape the disaster that I will bring upon them.'

18 For here is what ADONAI-Tzva'ot, the God of Isra'el, says: 'Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the inhabitants of Yerushalayim, so likewise my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt; so that you will become an object of condemnation, astonishment, cursing and reproach; and you will see this place no more.'

19 "ADONAI has spoken concerning you, remnant of Y'hudah! Don't go to Egypt! You know for a fact that I have given you fair warning today.

20 For you have been behaving deceitfully, against your own interests. You sent me to ADONAI your God, saying, 'Pray for us to ADONAI our God; tell us everything ADONAI our God says, and we will do it.'

Jeremiah 42:10-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH CAHPTER 42

This chapter contains a request of the Jews to Jeremiah, to pray to the Lord for them to direct them, and the Lord's answer to it. The request is made by the captains and all the people, Jer 42:1-3; which Jeremiah undertook to present to the Lord, Jer 42:4; they promising to go according to the direction that should be given, Jer 42:5,6. After ten days an answer is returned, and the prophet calls the captains and people together to hear it, Jer 42:7,8; the purport of which was, that if they continued in the land of Judah, it would be well with them, and they would be safe, Jer 42:9-12; but if they went into Egypt, they should die by the sword, famine, and pestilence, and be a curse and reproach, and never see their own land more, Jer 42:13-18; they are charged with dissimulation and disobedience, Jer 42:19-21; and the chapter is concluded with an assurance of their perishing by the above judgments in the place they were desirous of dwelling in, Jer 42:22.