7. Now, this is what the Lord God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Why do you bring this terrible disaster on yourselves? Why do you keep destroying men, women, children, and babies from Judah until none are left?
8. Why do you make me angry by burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live. You will destroy yourselves and be cursed and ridiculed by all the nations on earth.
9. Have you forgotten the wicked things done by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their wives, and by you and your wives in Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem?
10. You have not humbled yourselves even to this day. You haven’t feared me or lived your lives by my teachings or by my decrees that I gave your ancestors.
11. This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I’m going to bring disaster on you and destroy all of Judah.
12. I will take away from Judah those who are left, those who were determined to go to live in Egypt. They will die in Egypt. All of them, from the least important to the most important, will die in wars or be brought to an end by famines. They will become something cursed, ridiculed, and disgraced.
13. I will punish those living in Egypt as I punished Jerusalem with wars, famines, and plagues.
14. None of the people of Judah who went to live in Egypt will survive or return to Judah, where they long to return and live. Only a few refugees will return there.
15. Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, all the women who were standing there, and all the people who lived at Pathros in Egypt answered Jeremiah. They said,
16. “We won’t listen to the message that you have spoken to us in the Lord’s name.
17. We will do everything we said we would do. We will burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out wine offerings to her as our ancestors, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem. We had plenty to eat then, and we lived comfortably and saw no disaster.
18. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out wine offerings to her, we have had nothing but wars and famines.”