Judah’s Idolatry Persists

16 As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger. 19 But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?

20 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

21 This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! 22 For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

24 Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. 25 From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again.[fn] 26 Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

27 When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer. 28 Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips. 29 Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’