Jeremiah 44:1-14

Here is the word YAHWEH gave Jeremiah concerning all the Israelites who were living in Egypt. They were in the cities of Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and in the Pathros region. “YAHWEH, God of Israel, Commander of Angel Armies, says this: You have seen with your own eyes all the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. Look at them; now they are in ruins and left uninhabited. This disaster came to your people because of their evil deeds; they have worshiped foreign gods, which they have previously known nothing about nor have their ancestors. They have brought them offerings and provoked my anger. Yet I kept sending you my servants the prophets to plead with you to stop doing such detestable things, which I hate with a passion! But you would not listen or pay attention, in order to turn from your wickedness and stop offering incense to other gods. So I let loose a firestorm of my anger, burning down the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem until nothing remained but a desolate wasteland, as it still is today. “And now I, YAHWEH, God of Israel, Commander God of Angel Armies, ask you: Why do you insist on heading for another disaster, one that will destroy every man, woman, and child in Judah? Why should you leave yourselves without a remnant? Why do you keep provoking my wrath by offering incense to Egyptian gods where you have settled? Are you bent on your own destruction? Don’t you realize you will become a curse and a laughingstock for all the nations of the earth? Have you forgotten all you have done in Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your ancestors, your wives, your kings, and their wives? Even now, you refuse to humble yourselves or be in awe of me. You have not followed my law or my teachings, which I set before you and your ancestors. “So, I, YAHWEH, God of Israel, Commander of Angel Armies, say to you that I am determined to bring disasters upon the people of Judah living in Egypt to eliminate you completely. I will make sure that the remnant of Judah who were determined to live in Egypt will die in Egypt. You will all be killed by the sword or die of starvation, from least to greatest. You will die such horrible deaths in war or from starvation that people of other nations will use you as an object of horror, a curse word, and mockery. I will punish those who settled in Egypt just as I punished Jerusalem: by sword, starvation, and plague. None of the remnant of Judah who have settled in Egypt will escape or survive to return to the country of Judah. Even though they want to go and live there again, only a few will escape and return.”