The Stubbornness of the People

The men who know their wives have been worshiping other gods, along with many women and all the people living in Egypt and Pathros, answer Jeremiah as one body. They refuse to listen to any word spoken in the LORD's name and instead vow to keep their promises to the Queen of Heaven, claiming that under such worship they had food and well-being, whereas abandoning it led to deprivation and death; the women further insist that their husbands fully participated in and approved these offerings.

T¹⁵hen all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, and all the women standing by— a great assembly— along with all the people living in the land of Egypt and in Pathros, said to Jeremiah, ¹⁶“As for the word you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you! ¹⁷Instead, we will do everything we vowed to do: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ¹⁸At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster. But from the time we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been perishing by sword and famine.” ¹⁹“Moreover,” said the women, “when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ knowledge that we made sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”