God will punish the people of Judah

44 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah about the people of Judah who were now living in Egypt. They were living in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis and places in the south part of Egypt. ² This was the Lord's message to them:

‘The Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says, “You saw the great trouble that I sent to the people of Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. Their towns have become heaps of stones and nobody lives in them. ³ That happened because of the wicked things that the people did in those places. They offered sacrifices to other gods. They worshipped gods that they never knew before. You and your ancestors did not know those gods either. That made me very angry. ⁴ Many times I sent my servants the prophets to speak to them. They warned them, ‘Do not do this disgusting thing that the Lord hates!’ ⁵ But the people there did not listen to my message. They refused to obey me. They did not stop doing wicked things. They did not stop offering sacrifices to other gods. ⁶ So I became very angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I sent them terrible trouble, like a fire that burned their towns and their streets. That is why their towns have become heaps of stones, as they still are today.” 

⁷ Now 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. ⁸ You 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. ⁹ Do 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. ¹⁰ Even 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.”

¹¹ So 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. ¹² I 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. ¹³ I 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. ¹⁴ None 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.” ’

¹⁵ A 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. ¹⁷ So 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.^[a] 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. ¹⁸ But 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.’

¹⁹ The 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.’

²⁰ Then Jeremiah said this to all those men and women who had answered him:

²¹ ‘The Lord saw everything that you were doing. You must surely realize that! He knew about the things that you, your ancestors, your kings, your leaders and all the people were doing. He remembered all the sacrifices that you offered to other gods in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ²² Finally, he had to punish you for the wicked and disgusting things that you were doing. Because of that, your land has become an empty place, like a desert. Its towns are heaps of stones where nobody lives. People use its name as a curse. ²³ That happened because you have offered sacrifices to other gods. You have done many sins against the Lord. You have refused to obey him. You have not obeyed his laws, his teaching or his commands. That is why all this trouble has happened to you now.’

²⁴ Then Jeremiah said this to all the people, including the women:

‘Listen to the Lord's message, all you people of Judah who are now living in Egypt. ²⁵ The Lord God Almighty, Israel's God, says, “You and your wives have certainly done the things that you said you would do. You said, ‘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.’ So do all those things that you promised to do!”

²⁶ But listen to the Lord's message to all you people of Judah who are living in Egypt. The Lord says, “I now promise this to you, with the authority of my own name. None of you who live in Egypt will ever use my name again when you make a promise. You will not say, ‘I promise you I will do this, as surely as the Lord God lives.’ ²⁷ Listen to me! I will choose to hurt you and not to help you. War or famine will kill all the people of Judah who are living in Egypt. None of them will remain alive. ²⁸ But a few of them will escape death and return to Judah from Egypt. They will be very few people. Then all the people of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know who speaks the truth. Do I speak the truth, or do they speak the truth? I do!”

²⁹ The Lord also says, “I will show you that I will surely punish you in this place. I will tell you something that will soon happen. Then you will know that my promise to punish you will certainly become true. ³⁰ I tell you now that I will put Hophra, king of Egypt, under the power of his enemies, who want to kill him. That is the same thing that I did to King Zedekiah of Judah. I put him under the power of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who wanted to kill him.” ’