Woe to them that go down to Egypt: faith, flight and help from Washington

I write this on 28 October 2026, three days after the second round. Some of the things I am telling are still happening, and I say where. I separate, as in the book, what is proven, what is under investigation and what the defence says. A text about the truth cannot afford to mix the three.

There is a passage in Isaiah that I used to read as ancient history. This week I stopped being able to read it that way.

What happened, in order

1. Sunday, 25 October. Lula wins the second round with 64,256,232 votes, against 59,826,041 for Flávio Bolsonaro — a difference of more than four million four hundred thousand votes. Flávio does not recognise the result and asks for the election to be annulled.

2. Monday, 26. Donald Trump says the election «seemed to have fraud», without presenting any proof. The same day, Flávio records a video: «I never thought of leaving the country, I will hand over my passports.» Justice Alexandre de Moraes had ordered him to hand them over, in a case against the lawyer Willer Tomaz de Souza, a friend of the senator and himself out of the country.

3. Tuesday, 27. The deadline ends at noon without the passports appearing, and they are cancelled. The defence itself says it is «completely in the dark». The Federal Police ask the Argentine authorities for help, who record no entry of him. At the end of the day, a senior official of the United States Department of State tells the BBC that the Trump administration «will grant» a visa to Flávio and his family.

This is what is proven. What is under investigation: Flávio is the target of inquiries for corruption, evasion of foreign exchange and money laundering. He has not been convicted of any of them, and he has the right to the presumption of innocence like anyone else. What the defence says: through the voice of the campaign coordinator, senator Rogério Marinho, that it is «persecution».

Keep those three things separate. We are going to need them.

Isaiah and Egypt

In Isaiah's time, the kingdom of Judah was squeezed between empires. Assyria was advancing, and the king's counsellors had a practical solution: make an alliance with Egypt, which had the best chariots in the ancient world. The prophet answered thus:

Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!

Isaiah 31:1

Notice that Isaiah does not accuse anyone of being weak for being afraid. Assyria was real. What he condemns is the place where salvation was sought: a foreign power, chosen because it had more strength, by people who claimed to trust in God.

And two verses later he says the sentence I wish every believer would read before applauding a foreign government:

Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.

Isaiah 31:3

It did not begin this week

The flight is the last step of a path that already had a name and a date:

• Early 2025 — Eduardo Bolsonaro moves to the United States. According to the Federal Police, he acts together with American authorities to obtain measures against Brazilian authorities.
• 9 July 2025 — Trump announces a 50% tariff on Brazilian products and justifies it, in writing, with the case against Jair Bolsonaro, which he calls a «witch hunt».
• 30 July 2025 — the American Treasury applies the Magnitsky Act to justice Alexandre de Moraes, a law designed to punish human rights violators and corrupt officials.
• 11 September 2025 — Jair Bolsonaro is sentenced by the STF to 27 years and 3 months for the attempted coup d'état.
• 16 June 2026 — Eduardo is sentenced, unanimously, to 4 years and 2 months for coercion in the course of the proceedings: he tried to interfere, from the United States, in the trial of his own father.

Notice the sequence: each time Brazilian justice advanced, the answer was sought in Washington. This week's flight is not a break with that path. It is its end.

«God, Fatherland and Family»

In the book I wrote that this slogan is a door: three good words, built so that disagreeing with them seems like disagreeing with the three things. What is seen now is what is on the other side of the door.

Fatherland — and a tariff requested against its own country, which is paid by the coffee and beef exporter, and by the workers he employs. None of them was judged for anything.

Family — and it is true that a family was protected. Just one.

God — and help was requested from Washington.

Fatherland, they said. And they went to ask another country to punish its own.

The voice of the people

When king Mosiah ended the monarchy among the Nephites, he left them a rule for choosing their judges. It is one of the most cited passages in the Book of Mormon about government, and it deserves to be read slowly:

Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.

Mosiah 29:26

Mosiah does not promise that the people are always right — the following verse foresees the day when the voice of the people chooses iniquity. But the criterion is the voice of the people, and not the will of whoever lost.

The argument for annulling the election was the extension of the voting hours. Let us do the arithmetic, which is public. According to the TSE, the votes recorded after 5 pm were 34,393. The difference between the two candidates was 4,430,191. Even if all those votes had gone to Lula and were annulled, he would still have more than 99% of the advantage. This is not a matter of opinion: it is arithmetic that anyone can redo at home.

Calling this fraud is that of which Isaiah also spoke:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20

The twelfth article of faith

I write this thinking above all of my brothers of the Church, because there is a sentence we all learned in Primary:

We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

Articles of Faith 1:12

It does not say «when the magistrate is one of ours». It does not say «when the decision pleases us». A judge orders a passport to be handed over; the answer this rule teaches is to hand it over, and to defend oneself in court with everything the law allows. That is, in fact, what Flávio himself promised the day before.

There is a proverb that is often misquoted, and I want to quote it correctly:

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.

Proverbs 28:1

The proverb does not say that he who flees is guilty — and I do not say so either. Flávio has not been judged, and it is justice, not an article, that will say so. What the proverb says is something else, and it is more uncomfortable: that the righteous does not need to flee. He stays, standing, bold as a lion, and presents his evidence. Whoever has the truth on his side has in the court the safest place in the world.

And Trump?

This article is not about Donald Trump. He himself said this week: «I am not governing Brazil. I am governing the United States.» And he also said: «I like Lula.» An American president defends what he judges to be his country's interest, and the American Christians who support him have their reasons, which are not ours.

The question that matters to the Brazilian believer is not about Trump. It is about us: what is it that leads a man who says he trusts in God to celebrate a foreign government that punishes his own country? Jeremiah answered twenty-six centuries ago:

Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:5

Jeremiah's arm of flesh is Isaiah's horse of Egypt. The names change; the gesture is the same.

Moroni's warning

There is a warning in the Book of Mormon that was not written for the Nephites. It was written for us, the Gentiles of the last days — and Moroni says exactly what we should do when we see it fulfilled:

Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you.

Ether 8:24

A verse earlier, Moroni gives the mark of those combinations: they are «established for the purpose of getting power and gain». It is not for me to put the label on anyone — that belongs to the courts, and in one of them there has already been a sentence about a coup plan that included killing an elected president, his vice-president and a Supreme Court justice. What Moroni asks of us is not hatred. It is that we be aware. That we not stop seeing what is in plain sight.

Three questions for whoever still hesitates

1. And if it were the other way round? If a candidate of the left lost by four million votes, refused to accept the result, disobeyed a judge and fled to Caracas or Beijing with a promised visa — what name would you give that? If the answer changes according to the side, it is not faith. It is a cheerleading squad.

2. Who paid the bill? The 2025 tariff did not fall on the STF or on the government. It fell on the producer, on the factory and on employment. Whoever asked for it knew that.

3. What does this narrative ask of me next? If it asks me to distrust the ballot boxes, the courts and arithmetic, and to trust a foreign government, it is asking me exactly what Isaiah commanded not to do.

The fruits

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Matthew 7:16

The fruits of this week are in plain sight: an election lost and not recognised, an accusation of fraud without a single piece of evidence, a passport that was not handed over, a private plane and a visa promised by another country. There is no need to guess intentions or read hearts. It is enough to look at the tree.

And no verse in the mouth erases what is in the hands.

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Sources

• Second round result, votes after 5 pm, passports, visa and Trump's statements: BBC News Brasil, «EUA dizem que darão visto a Flávio Bolsonaro», 27/10/2026. Official results: resultados.tse.jus.br.
• Case against Willer Tomaz, inquiries against Flávio, reaction of the PL and Eduardo's situation: Brasil de Fato, «Departamento de Estado dos EUA confirma visto para Flávio Bolsonaro», 27/10/2026.
• Trump's letter and the 50% tariff: Al Jazeera, «Trump singles out Brazil for 50 percent tariffs over Bolsonaro trial», 9/7/2025.
• Magnitsky Act against Alexandre de Moraes: «Trump admin. hits Brazil with tariffs, sanctions over Bolsonaro case», 30/7/2025.
• Conviction of Eduardo Bolsonaro: Diário do Nordeste, «Eduardo Bolsonaro é condenado pelo STF a quatro anos e dois meses de prisão», 16/6/2026.
• Conviction of Jair Bolsonaro (11/9/2025) and decisions in the coup case: portal.stf.jus.br.
• Scriptures: Gospel Library, English edition of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This text develops chapter 4 of O Altar e o Algoritmo — Como Identificar os Novos Mercadores da Fé, in particular «Eduardo Bolsonaro e a missão em Washington» and «A traição que não ousa dizer o nome». Written on 28 October 2026, with the facts known on that day.