16 “As for you, ado not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you.

17 “Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 “The 1children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they apour out drink offerings to other gods in order to bspite Me.

19 “aDo they spite Me?” declares the Lord. “Is it not themselves they spite, to 1their own bshame?”

20 Therefore thus says the Lord 1God, “Behold, My aanger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the btrees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”

21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your aburnt offerings to your sacrifices and beat flesh.

22 “For I did not aspeak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

23 “But this is 1what I commanded them, saying, ‘aObey My voice, and bI will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may cbe well with you.’

24 “Yet they adid not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and 1bwent backward and not forward.

25 “Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have asent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them.

26 “Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but astiffened their neck; they bdid more evil than their fathers.