¹⁸ The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.^(A)

¹⁵ Then all the men who were aware that their wives had been making offerings to other gods and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah:^{(A) 16} “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you.^{(B) 17} Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food and prospered and saw no misfortune.^{(C) 18} But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.”^{(D) 19} And the women said,^[a] “Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands’ being involved?”^(E)

²⁵ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have accomplished in deeds what you declared in words, saying, ‘We are determined to perform the vows that we have made, to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her.’ By all means, keep your vows and make your libations!^(A)