¹This was the Lord’s message to the prophet Jeremiah about the Philistines before Pharaoh attacked Gaza: ²“Look! Enemies are gathering in the north like water rising in a river. They will be like an overflowing stream. They will overwhelm the whole country and everything in it like a flood. They will overwhelm the cities and their inhabitants. People will cry out in alarm. Everyone living in the country will cry out in pain. ³Fathers will hear the hoofbeats of the enemies’ horses, the clatter of their chariots and the rumbling of their wheels. They will not turn back to save their children because they will be paralyzed with fear. ⁴For the time has come to destroy all the Philistines. The time has come to destroy all the help that remains for Tyre and Sidon. For I, the Lord, will destroy the Philistines, that remnant that came from the island of Crete. ⁵The people of Gaza will shave their heads in mourning. The people of Ashkelon will be struck dumb. How long will you gash yourselves to show your sorrow, you who remain of Philistia’s power? ⁶How long will you cry out, ‘Oh, sword of the Lord, how long will it be before you stop killing? Go back into your sheath; stay there and rest!’ ⁷But how can it rest when I, the Lord, have given it orders? I have ordered it to attack the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast.”