They rejected the Lord’s laws and the agreement he had made with their ancestors. And they refused to listen to his warnings. They worshiped useless idols and became useless themselves. They did what the nations around them did, which the Lord had warned them not to do.
This happened because they did not obey the Lord their God. They broke his agreement and did not obey all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded. They would not listen to the commands or do them.
“When you tell the people of Judah these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the Lord said these terrible things to us? What have we done wrong? What sin have we done against the Lord our God?’
It will not be like the agreement I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt. I was a husband to them, but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
When the people of Judah ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these terrible things to us?’ then give them this answer: ‘You have left the Lord and served foreign idols in your own land. So now you will serve foreigners in a land that does not belong to you.’
You will be comforted when you see what happens to them for living as they did, because you will know there was a good reason for what I did to Jerusalem, says the Lord God.”
But you are stubborn and refuse to change, so you are making your own punishment even greater on the day he shows his anger. On that day everyone will see God’s right judgments.