Jeremiah 23:33–36

“When these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, ‘What is the message from the Lord?’ say to them, ‘What message? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.’ If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, ‘This is a message from the Lord,’ I will punish them and their household. This is what each of you keeps saying to your friends and other Israelites: ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ But you must not mention ‘a message from the Lord’ again, because each one’s word becomes their own message. So you distort the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God.

“Now when these people or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you will respond to them, ‘What is the burden? I will throw you away! This is the Lord’s declaration.’ As for the prophet, priest, or people who say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ I will punish that man and his household. This is what each man is to say to his friend and to his brother: ‘What has the Lord answered?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ But no longer refer to the burden of the Lord, for each man’s word becomes his burden and you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of Armies, our God.

“Suppose one of the people or one of the prophets or priests asks you, ‘What prophecy has the Lord burdened you with now?’ You must reply, ‘You are the burden! The Lord says he will abandon you!’

“If any prophet, priest, or anyone else says, ‘I have a prophecy from the Lord,’ I will punish that person along with his entire family. You should keep asking each other, ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’ or ‘What is the Lord saying?’ But stop using this phrase, ‘prophecy from the Lord.’ For people are using it to give authority to their own ideas, turning upside down the words of our God, the living God, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

“Now when this people, or a prophet, or a priest, ask you, saying, ‘What is the burden of Yahweh?’ then you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will forsake you, declares Yahweh.’ And the prophet, and the priest, and the people who say, ‘The burden of Yahweh,’ I will punish that man and his house. Thus you shall say, each one to his neighbor and each one to his brother: ‘What has Yahweh answered?’ or, ‘What has Yahweh spoken?’ But the burden of Yahweh you shall not mention again, for the burden is to each one his word, and so you twist the words of the living God, Yahweh of hosts, our God.

And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the Lord. And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the Lord, I will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and, What hath the Lord spoken? And the burden of the Lord shall ye mention no more: for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.