Yeremia 44

Judeans in Egypt warned

¹This message came to Jeremiah for all the Judeans living in the land of Egypt, at Migdol, Tahpanhes and Memphis, and in the land of Pathros:

²“The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: You have seen for yourselves all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah. Today they lie in ruins, and no one lives in them, ³because of the evil they did to provoke me to anger. They went and burned incense and served other gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors had ever known. ⁴Again and again I sent you all my servants the prophets to say, ‘Please do not do this detestable thing that I hate!’ ⁵But they did not listen or pay attention. They would not turn from their evil and stop burning incense to other gods. ⁶So my fury and my anger poured out and blazed in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and they became the ruined wasteland they are today.

⁷So now the LORD God of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: Why are you bringing such great harm on yourselves? You are cutting off man and woman, child and infant, from among Judah, and leaving yourselves no remnant, ⁸by provoking me to anger with what your hands have made, burning incense to other gods in Egypt, the land you have come to live in? It will only cut you off and make you a curse and a disgrace among all the nations of the earth. ⁹Have you forgotten the wicked deeds of your ancestors, of the kings of Judah and their wives, your own wicked deeds and those of your wives, which were done in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?^{a 10}To this day they have not been humbled, and they have shown no fear. They have not lived by my instruction and my statutes, which I set before you and your ancestors.

¹¹Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: I am setting my face against you to bring harm, to cut off all Judah. ¹²I will take away the remnant of Judah who were determined to go to the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all perish in the land of Egypt. They will fall by the sword or perish by famine; least and greatest alike will die by sword and famine. They will become a name used in curses, a horror, a curse and a disgrace. ¹³Those who live in the land of Egypt I will punish as I punished Jerusalem, with sword, famine and plague. ¹⁴Of the remnant of Judah who have come to live in the land of Egypt, none will escape or survive to go back to the land of Judah, though they long to return and live there. None will return except a few fugitives.”

Incense for the queen of heaven

¹⁵Then a great assembly answered Jeremiah: all the men who were aware that their wives burned incense to other gods, all the women standing by, and all the people living in Pathros in the land of Egypt. They said: ¹⁶“That message you spoke to us in the name of the LORD: we are not going to listen to you. ¹⁷Instead, we will do everything we have promised: we will burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. Back then we had plenty of food, we were well off, and we saw no disaster. ¹⁸But from the time we gave up burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring drink offerings out to her, we have been in need of everything and have been wiped out by sword and famine.” ¹⁹“And when we were burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring drink offerings out to her, did we make cakes bearing her image and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ consent?”^b

²⁰Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people, the men and the women, all the people who had given him this answer. He said: ²¹“The incense you burned in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, you and your ancestors, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land: has the LORD not remembered it, and has it not come into his mind? ²²The LORD could no longer bear your evil deeds and the detestable things you did, so your land became a ruin, a horror and a curse, with no one living in it, as it is today. ²³It is because you burned incense and sinned against the LORD, and would not listen to the voice of the LORD or live by his instruction, his statutes and his decrees, that this disaster has come upon you, as it has today.”

²⁴Then Jeremiah said to all the people and all the women, “Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who are in the land of Egypt.

²⁵The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: You and your wives have said it with your mouths and carried it out with your hands: ‘We will certainly keep the vows we made, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.’ Go ahead, then: keep your vows! Carry out your vows!^c

²⁶Therefore hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who live in the land of Egypt: I swear by my great name, says the LORD, that in all the land of Egypt my name will never again be invoked by anyone from Judah who says, ‘As surely as the Lord GOD lives.’ ²⁷I am keeping watch over them for harm and not for good. All the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are wiped out. ²⁸Those who escape the sword and return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah will be very few. Then all the remnant of Judah who came to the land of Egypt to live there will know whose word comes true, mine or theirs. ²⁹This will be the sign to you, declares the LORD, that I will punish you in this place, so that you may know that my words of harm against you will certainly come true:

³⁰The LORD says this: I am going to hand Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt over to his enemies, to those who want to kill him, just as I handed Zedekiah king of Judah over to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, who wanted to kill him.”