Jeremiah 44:11-23
The people deliberately choose to serve idols, as their fathers did, and they are not ashamed to say so. It is open rebellion against the LORD. How far downhill the people have gone, morally speaking, since Joshua 24:1-33 when Israel, having gone up out of Egypt into Canaan, was following their leader’s example and made the promise: "God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods . . . we will also serve the LORD; for he is our God" (Joshua 24:16; Joshua 24:18). Moreover, with a faith entirely corrupt, these Jews blame their present misery on the fact that they had stopped revering "the queen of heaven" (cf. Jeremiah 7:18). Even though the LORD had warned them about the sword, plague and famine which awaited them in Egypt, the moment when these evils arise they use them as an excuse to start offering their sacrifices to these idols again! How many people reason in the same way: God has not given me what I wanted! Never mind that – I will go over to the world (of which Egypt is always a picture) – it will give me what I want.
Wretched human heart! These verses teach us that it can be blinded both by proud unbelief and by the most evil superstition (2 Corinthians 4:4).