Jeremiah 44:17
“But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil.”
What does Jeremiah 44:17 mean?
The people of Judah here are stubbornly refusing God's warning through Jeremiah, insisting they'll keep worshiping a foreign goddess (likely Astarte, associated with fertility and the heavens) because they believe this practice brought them prosperity and protection. They're essentially saying, "We know what works for us, and we're not stopping, no matter what you say." It's a deeply human moment: they've linked their old habits to their past comfort, so they mistake correlation for cause and can't imagine that abandoning these practices might actually be what God wants for their good. Even when facing exile and disaster, they're doubling down on the very spiritual unfaithfulness that led them there, trapped in a cycle of looking backward to explain why they should stay the same.