1The word that came to Jeremiah about all the Jews who were living in the land of Egypt - those living at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Noph, and in the country of Pathros:
2"This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: You have seen all the trouble I brought on Jerusalem and on all the cities of Judah. Look, today they are a ruin, and no one lives in them."
3"This is because of the wickedness they did to make me angry. They went to burn incense and to serve other gods, gods they did not know - neither they, nor you, nor your fathers."
4"Yet I sent all my servants the prophets to you, getting up early and sending them, saying, 'Oh, do not do this hateful thing that I hate.'"
5"But they did not listen. They did not turn their ear to leave their wickedness and stop burning incense to other gods."
6"So my fury and my anger were poured out. They burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and those places are ruined and empty, as they are today."
7"So now this is what the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, says: Why are you doing this great evil against your own souls? You are cutting off from yourselves man and woman, child and baby at the breast, out of Judah, so that not one of you is left."
8"You make me angry with the works of your hands. You burn incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to live. So you cut yourselves off, and you become a curse and an insult among all the nations of the earth."
9"Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives? They did all this in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem."
10"To this day they have not made themselves humble. They have had no fear of me. They have not walked in my law or in my rules, which I set before you and before your fathers."
11"Therefore this is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: Look, I will set my face against you to bring trouble, and to cut off all Judah."
12"I will take those left of Judah who set their faces to go into the land of Egypt and live there. They will all be destroyed, and will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be destroyed by the sword and by famine. From the least to the greatest they will die by the sword and by famine. They will become a thing of horror, a shock, a curse and an insult."
13"I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt, just as I punished Jerusalem - by the sword, by famine, and by disease."
14"So no one left of Judah who has gone into the land of Egypt to live there will escape or be left to go back to the land of Judah, though they long to return and live there. None will return except a few who escape."
15Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, and all the women standing there, a great crowd, and all the people living in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah:
16"As for the word you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you."
17"We will certainly do everything we said we would do. We will burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did before - we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. In those days we had plenty of food, we were well off, and we saw no trouble."
18"But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything, and we have been destroyed by the sword and by famine."
19And the women said, "When we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made cakes to worship her and poured out drink offerings to her?"
20Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people - to the men, to the women, and to all the people who had given him that answer. He said:
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 the LORD not remember it? Did it not come into his mind?"
22"The LORD could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your deeds and the hateful things you did. That is why your land is a ruin and a horror and a curse, with no one living in it, as it is today."
23"You burned incense, and you sinned against the LORD. You did not obey the voice of the LORD, and you did not walk in his law or in his rules or in his words of warning. That is why this trouble has come on you, as it is today."
24Jeremiah also 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."
25"This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says. You and your wives have spoken with your mouths and carried it out with your hands. You said, 'We will surely keep the vows we have made, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.' Then go on, keep your vows and carry out your vows."
26"So hear the word of the LORD, all Judah who live in the land of Egypt. Look, I have sworn by my great name, says the LORD, that my name will never again be spoken by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, 'As the Lord GOD lives.'"
27"Look, I am watching over them to bring trouble and not good. All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be destroyed by the sword and by famine, until they are finished."
28"Yet a small number who escape the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah. Then all those left of Judah who went into the land of Egypt to live there will know whose words stand, mine or theirs."
29"And this will be the sign to you, says the LORD, that I will punish you in this place, so that you may know that my words will surely stand against you for trouble."