Bible Strands
Jeremiah 48:6
‘Flee! Run for your lives! Become like a juniper in the desert.’
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses Moab, commanding immediate flight as divine judgment closes in on the region. The directive occurs amid weeping and distress over the coming destruction of Moabite settlements.
The words — נֻסוּ (Nu.su) translates literally to "flee" and מַלְטוּ נַפְשְׁכֶם (ma.le.tu naf.shi.khem) means "save your lives." כְּעֲרֹעֵר בַּמִּדְבָּר (kə.ʿă.rō.ʿêr ba.mid.bar) renders as "like a juniper in the wilderness."
The thread — The command to flee judgment reappears in Jeremiah 51:6 directed at Babylon and parallels the desolation imagery of Jeremiah 17:6 and Job 30:3. These references tie Moab's collapse to a broader biblical pattern of nations facing divine reckoning.
Why it lands — The text requires immediate departure from a system destined for destruction. It demands recognition that reliance on personal works or accumulated treasure cannot prevent capture when judgment arrives.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 17:6 He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see when prosperity comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
- Job 30:3 Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.
- Jeremiah 51:6 Flee from Babylon! Escape with your lives! Do not be destroyed in her punishment. For this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance; He will pay her what she deserves.
- Genesis 19:17 As soon as the men had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”
- Psalms 11:1 For the choirmaster. Of David. In the LORD I take refuge. How then can you say to me: “Flee like a bird to your mountain!
- Proverbs 6:4 Allow no sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids.
- Matthew 24:16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
- Luke 3:7 Then John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
- Luke 17:31 On that day, let no one on the housetop come down to retrieve his possessions. Likewise, let no one in the field return for anything he has left behind.
- Hebrews 6:18 Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.