Jeremiah 44:11–27

¹¹“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, ⁿI will set My face against you for catastrophe and for ⁴cutting off all Judah. ¹²And I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to dwell there, and ^othey shall all be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine. They shall die, from the least to the greatest, by the sword and by famine; and ^pthey shall be an oath, an astonishment, a curse and a reproach! ^13qFor I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, ¹⁴so that none of the remnant of Judah who have gone into the land of Egypt to dwell there shall escape or survive, lest they return to the land of Judah, to which they ^rdesire ⁵to return and dwell. For ^snone shall return except those who escape.’ ”

¹⁵Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, with all the women who stood by, a great multitude, and all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: ¹⁶“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, ^twe will not listen to you! ¹⁷But we will certainly do ^uwhatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the ^vqueen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of ⁶food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. ¹⁸But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.”

¹⁹The women also said, ^w“And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ permission?”

²⁰Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people—the men, the women, and all the people who had given him that answer—saying: ²¹“The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and did it not come into His mind? ²²So the Lord could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you committed. Therefore your land is a desolation, an astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant, ^xas it is this day. ²³Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord or walked in His law, in His statutes or in His testimonies, ^ytherefore this calamity has happened to you, as at this day.”

²⁴Moreover Jeremiah said to all the people and to all the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt! ²⁵Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: ‘You and your wives have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled with your hands, saying, “We will surely keep our vows that we have made, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” You will surely keep your vows and perform your vows!’ ²⁶Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt: ‘Behold, ^zI have sworn by My ^agreat name,’ says the Lord, ‘that ^bMy name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “The Lord God lives.” ²⁷Behold, I will watch over them for adversity and not for good. And all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt ^cshall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end to them.