The tone of Jeremiah’s message changes in Jeremiah 43:7–10. There is an obvious intensification of the emotional tension from sorrowful but calm recital of the facts of history to a challenging and indignant questioning of those addressed.
1 The evil that had been done in Judah has continued among those who had fled to Egypt. They continued making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to live.
The Lord’s questions are probing. Why do you commit this great evil against yourselves, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and child, from the midst of Judah, leaving you no remnant?
The people have not learned from what happened in Judah. They have persisted in their idolatry and are bringing on themselves the same fate. A great tragedy is coming that will leave them forever separated from the Lord’s people. The devastating judgment that has fallen on Judah has not caused those in Egypt to humble themselves.
It has brought about no repentance, no fear of the Lord, no return to walking in covenant faithfulness.
3 because of the evil that they committed, provoking me to anger, in that they went to make offerings and serve other gods that they knew not, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers.