Jeremiah 44:2-17 The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: You have seen all the evil which I have sent on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah; and now, this day they are waste and unpeopled;

BBE⁽ⁱ⁾ ² The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: You have seen all the evil which I have sent on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah; and now, this day they are waste and unpeopled; ³ Because of the evil which they have done, moving me to wrath by burning perfumes in worship to other gods, who were not their gods or yours or the gods of their fathers. ⁴ And I sent all my servants the prophets to you, getting up early and sending them, saying, Do not do this disgusting thing which is hated by me. ⁵ But they gave no attention, and their ears were not open so that they might be turned from their evil-doing and from burning perfume to other gods. ⁶ Because of this, my passion and my wrath were let loose, burning in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are waste and unpeopled as at this day. ⁷ So now, the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Why are you doing this great evil against yourselves, causing every man and woman, little child and baby at the breast among you in Judah to be cut off till not one is still living; ⁸ Moving me to wrath with the work of your hands, burning perfumes to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to make a place for yourselves, so that you may become a curse and a name of shame among all the nations of the earth? ⁹ Have you no memory of the evil-doing of your fathers, and the evil-doing of the kings of Judah, and the evil-doing of their wives, and the evil which you yourselves have done, and the evil which your wives have done, in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ Even to this day their hearts are not broken, and they have no fear, and have not gone in the way of my law or of my rules which I gave to you and to your fathers. ¹¹ So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, my face will be turned against you for evil, for the cutting off of all Judah; ¹² And I will take the last of Judah, whose minds are fixed on going into the land of Egypt and stopping there, and they will all come to their end, falling in the land of Egypt by the sword and by being short of food and by disease; death will overtake them, from the least to the greatest, death by the sword and by need of food: they will become an oath and a cause of wonder and a curse and a name of shame. ¹³ For I will send punishment on those who are living in the land of Egypt, as I have sent punishment on Jerusalem, by the sword and by need of food and by disease: ¹⁴ So that not one of the rest of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt and are living there, will get away or keep his life, to come back to the land of Judah where they are hoping to come back and be living again: for not one will come back, but only those who are able to get away. ¹⁵ Then all the men who had knowledge that their wives were burning perfumes to other gods, and all the women who were present, a great meeting, answering Jeremiah, said, ¹⁶ As for the word which you have said to us in the name of the Lord, we will not give ear to you. ¹⁷ But we will certainly do every word which has gone out of our mouths, burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her as we did, we and our fathers and our kings and our rulers, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then we had food enough and did well and saw no evil.