15 Then all the men who knew that (A)their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in (B)Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: 16 “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, (C)we will not listen to you. 17 (D)But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to (E)the queen of heaven (F)and pour out drink offerings to her, (G)as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. 18 But since we left off making offerings to (H)the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything (I)and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” 19 And the women said,[a] “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven (J)and poured out drink offerings to her, was it (K)without our husbands' approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 44:19 Compare Syriac; Hebrew lacks And the women said

15 Then all the men who knew that their wives(A) were burning incense(B) to other gods, along with all the women(C) who were present—a large assembly—and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt,(D) said to Jeremiah, 16 “We will not listen(E) to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord!(F) 17 We will certainly do everything we said we would:(G) We will burn incense(H) to the Queen of Heaven(I) and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials(J) did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.(K) At that time we had plenty of food(L) and were well off and suffered no harm.(M) 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings(N) to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.(O)

19 The women added, “When we burned incense(P) to the Queen of Heaven(Q) and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands(R) know that we were making cakes(S) impressed with her image(T) and pouring out drink offerings to her?”

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