7 ¹⁶ "As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I do not hear you. 7 ¹⁷ Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 7 ¹⁸ The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. 7 ¹⁹ Is it I whom they provoke? says Yahweh. Is it not themselves, to their own confusion? 7 ²⁰ Therefore thus says Yahweh GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched."

7 ²¹ Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. 7 ²² For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 7 ²³ But this command I gave them, 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.' 7 ²⁴ But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. 7 ²⁵ From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; 7 ²⁶ yet they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

7 ²⁷ "So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. 7 ²⁸ And you shall say to them, 'This is the nation that did not obey the voice of Yahweh their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.