Woe to Those Who Go Down to Egypt

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help

and rely on horses,

who trust in chariots because they are many

and in horsemen because they are very strong,

but do not look to the Holy One of Israel

or consult the Lord!

²And yet he is wise and brings disaster;

he does not call back his words,

but will arise against the house of the evildoers

and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

³The Egyptians are man, and not God,

and their horses are flesh, and not spirit.

When the Lord stretches out his hand,

the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall,

and they will all perish together.

⁴For thus the Lord said to me,

“As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey,

and when a band of shepherds is called out against him

he is not terrified by their shouting

or daunted at their noise,

so the Lord of hosts will come down

to fight1 on Mount Zion and on its hill.

⁵Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts

will protect Jerusalem;

he will protect and deliver it;

he will spare and rescue it.”

⁶Turn to him from whom people2 have deeply revolted, O children of Israel. ⁷For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.

⁸“And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man;

and a sword, not of man, shall devour him;

and he shall flee from the sword,

and his young men shall be put to forced labor.

⁹His rock shall pass away in terror,

and his officers desert the standard in panic,”

declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion,

and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.