Jeremiah 44:7-19

7Now the Lord God Almighty, Israel's God, says, “You are causing more trouble for yourselves. Why are you doing that? All the men, women, children and babies will disappear from Judah. None of your people will remain alive.

8You continue to make me angry because of the things that you are doing. You are offering sacrifices to the gods of Egypt, where you now live. As a result, you will destroy yourselves. The people of all the other nations will use your name as a curse. They will all laugh at you.

9Do not forget about all the wicked things that your ancestors did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. I punished them, as well as their kings and their kings' wives. And I punished you and your wives too.

10Even now your people are still proud. They have not respected my authority. They have not obeyed the laws and commands that I gave to you and to your ancestors.”

11So the Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says, “Listen to me! I will certainly cause you to have great trouble. I will destroy all Judah's people.

12I will remove the people who remained in Judah and who decided to come here to live in Egypt. They will all die here. War or famine will kill them. All of them will die here in Egypt, important people and ordinary people. Other people will think that they are disgusting. They will insult them. They will use their name as a curse, because God has cursed them.

13I will punish the people who have come to live in Egypt. War, famine or disease will kill them, in the way that I punished the people of Jerusalem.

14None of the people who remained in Judah and who came to live here in Egypt will escape. They will not remain alive to return to Judah. They may want very much to return, but only a few will be able to run away and go home.” ’

15A large crowd of Judah's people listened to Jeremiah. They came from the places where they now lived in the north and the south of Egypt. Some men were there who knew that their wives were offering sacrifices to other gods. Those men and their wives said to Jeremiah,

16‘We do not believe that your message really comes from the Lord.

17So we will continue to do what we have promised to do. We will make sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven. We will pour out drink offerings to her. That is what our ancestors, our kings and our leaders did when we lived in Jerusalem and in the other towns of Judah. When we did that, we had plenty of food to eat. We enjoyed a good life and we had no troubles.

18But since we stopped offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, we have not had those good things. War and famine have been killing our people.’

19The women said, ‘It is true that we offered sacrifices and drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven. We also made cakes that were like her image. But our husbands knew what we were doing and they helped us.’