Jeremiah 23:9–40

Jeremiah’s Message about the Prophets

⁹My heart is crushed,

and I am trembling.

Because of the Lord,

because of his holy words,

I am like a man who is drunk,

a man who has had too much wine.

¹⁰The land is full of people unfaithful to the Lord;

they live wicked lives and misuse their power.

Because of the Lord’s curse the land mourns and the pastures are dry.

¹¹The Lord says,

“The prophets and the priests are godless;

I have caught them doing evil in the Temple itself.

¹²The paths they follow will be slippery and dark; I will make them stumble and fall.

I am going to bring disaster on them;

the time of their punishment is coming.

I, the Lord, have spoken.

¹³I have seen the sin of Samaria’s prophets:

they have spoken in the name of Baal

and have led my people astray.

^14*But I have seen the prophets in Jerusalem do even worse:

they commit adultery and tell lies;

they help people to do wrong,

so that no one stops doing what is evil.

To me, they are all

as bad as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

¹⁵“So then, this is what I, the Lord Almighty, say about the prophets of Jerusalem:

I will give them bitter plants to eat

and poison to drink,

because they have spread ungodliness throughout the land.”

¹⁶The Lord Almighty said to the people of Jerusalem, “Do not listen to what the prophets say; they are filling you with false hopes. They tell you what they have imagined and not what I have said. ¹⁷To the people who refuse to listen to what I have said, they keep saying that all will go well with them. And they tell everyone who is stubborn that disaster will never touch him.”

¹⁸I said, “None of these prophets has ever known the Lord’s secret thoughts. None of them has ever heard or understood his message, or ever listened or paid attention to what he said. ¹⁹His anger is a storm, a furious wind that will rage over the heads of the wicked, ²⁰and it will not end until he has done everything he intends to do. In days to come his people will understand this clearly.”

²¹The Lord said, “I did not send these prophets, but even so they went. I did not give them any message, but still they spoke in my name. ²²If they had known my secret thoughts, then they could have proclaimed my message to my people and could have made them give up the evil lives they live and the wicked things they do.

²³“I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. ²⁴No one can hide where I cannot see him. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth? ²⁵I know what those prophets have said who speak lies in my name and claim that I have given them my messages in their dreams. ²⁶How much longer will those prophets mislead my people with the lies they have invented? ²⁷They think that the dreams they tell will make my people forget me, just as their ancestors forgot me and turned to Baal. ²⁸The prophet who has had a dream should say it is only a dream, but the prophet who has heard my message should proclaim that message faithfully. What good is straw compared with wheat? ²⁹My message is like a fire, and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces. ³⁰I am against those prophets who take each other’s words and proclaim them as my message. ³¹I am also against those prophets who speak their own words and claim they came from me. ³²Listen to what I, the Lord, say! I am against the prophets who tell their dreams that are full of lies. They tell these dreams and lead my people astray with their lies and their boasting. I did not send them or order them to go, and they are of no help at all to the people. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

The ’s Burden

³³The Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, when one of my people or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the Lord’s message?’ you are to tell him, ‘You are a burden^a to the Lord, and he is going to get rid of you.’ ³⁴If any of my people or a prophet or a priest even uses the words ‘the Lord’s burden’, I will punish them and their families. ³⁵Instead, they should each ask their friends and relatives, ‘What answer has the Lord given? What has the Lord said?’ ³⁶So they must no longer use the words ‘the Lord’s burden’, because if anyone does, I will make my message a real burden to him. The people have perverted the words of their God, the living God, the Lord Almighty. ³⁷Jeremiah, ask the prophets, ‘What answer did the Lord give you? What did the Lord say?’ ³⁸And if they disobey my command and use the words ‘the Lord’s burden’, then tell them that ³⁹I will certainly pick them up^b and throw them far away from me, both them and the city that I gave to them and their ancestors. ⁴⁰I will bring on them everlasting shame and disgrace that will never be forgotten.”