"Go up, ye horses; rage, ye chariots;
Ethiopians and Libyans that handle the shield,
Lydians that handle and bend the bow"
(the tributaries and mercenaries of Egypt).
Then, as before, he speaks plainly of coming disaster:
"That day is a day of vengeance for the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth, whereon He will avenge Him of His adversaries"
(a day of vengeance upon Pharaoh Necho for Megiddo and Josiah).
"The sword shall devour and be sated, and drink its fill of their blood:
For the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth hath a sacrifice in the northern land, by the river Euphrates."
In a final strophe, the prophet turns to the land left bereaved and defenceless by the defeat at Carchemish:—
"Go up to Gilead and get thee balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt:
In vain dost thou multiply medicines; thou canst not be healed.
The nations have heard of thy shame, the earth is full of thy cry:
For warrior stumbles against warrior; they fall both together."
Nevertheless the end was not yet. Egypt was wounded to death, but she was to linger on for many a long year to be a snare to Judah and to vex the righteous soul of Jeremiah. The reed was broken, but it still retained an appearance of soundness, which more than once tempted the Jewish princes to lean upon it and find their hands pierced for their pains. Hence, as we have seen already, Jeremiah repeatedly found occasion to reiterate the doom of Egypt, of Necho's successor, Pharaoh Hophra, and of the Jewish refugees who had sought safety under his protection. In the concluding part of chapter xlvi., a prophecy of uncertain date sets forth the ruin of Egypt with rather more literary finish than in the parallel passages.