12 I will take away the remnant of Judah who insisted on going to the land of Egypt to live there; in the land of Egypt they shall meet their end. They shall fall by the sword or be consumed by hunger. From the least to the greatest, they shall die by sword or hunger; they shall become a malediction, a horror, a curse, a reproach.
13 Thus I will punish those who live in Egypt, just as I punished Jerusalem, with sword, hunger, and disease,
14 so that none of the remnant of Judah who came to live in the land of Egypt shall escape or survive. No one shall return to the land of Judah. Even though they long to return and live there, they shall not return except as refugees.
15 They answered Jeremiah—all the men who knew that their wives were offering sacrifices to other gods, all the women standing there in the immense crowd, and all the people who lived in Lower and Upper Egypt:
16 “Regarding the word you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not listening to you.
17 Rather we will go on doing what we proposed; we will offer incense to the Queen of Heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we have done, along with our ancestors, our kings and princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty to eat, we prospered, and we suffered no misfortune.
18 But ever since we stopped offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out libations to her, we lack everything and are being destroyed by sword and hunger.”