Idolatry Leads to Judgment

44 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, who dwell at Migdol, and Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and in the country of Pathros,^[a] saying, ² Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: You have seen all the calamity that I have brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Look at them; today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them, ³ because of their wickedness, which they have committed to provoke Me to anger, in that they went to burn incense and to serve other gods, whom they did not know; they nor you nor your fathers. ⁴ However, I sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, “Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate.” ⁵ But they did not listen nor incline their ear to turn from their wickedness, not to burn incense to other gods. ⁶ Therefore My fury and My anger was poured out and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are ruined and desolate, as it is this day.

⁷ Now thus says the Lord God of Hosts, the God of Israel: Why are you committing this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and infant, out of Judah, leaving you no one to remain, ⁸ provoking Me to wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to dwell, so that you might cut yourselves off and become a curse and a reproach 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, which they have committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ They are not humbled even to this day, nor have they feared, nor have they walked in My law and My statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.

¹¹ Therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: I will set My face against you for disaster, and to cut off all Judah. ¹² I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they all will be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt. They will even be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they will be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. ¹³ For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem; by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. ¹⁴ So none of the remnant of Judah who have gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there will escape or remain, with the result that they return into the land of Judah to which they have a desire to return to dwell there. For no one shall return except those who escape.