Jeremiah 42:20
For ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it. For ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it.
The remnant's plea for divine direction was hollow at its core, for inward deception lay behind their solemn pledge to carry out whatever the Lord would declare. They vowed unconditional obedience while their minds were already fixed on their own preferred path. Their subsequent escape into Egypt, undertaken in direct defiance of Jeremiah's warning, stands as the proof of that duplicity. By abandoning the land in that way they rejected the very counsel they had solicited and promised to follow.