Jeremiah 23

O shepherds who scatter and destroy the sheep of my pasture!

Therefore thus says the Lord against those who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away and have not visited them. Behold, I am bringing punishment upon you according to your evil practices.

And I myself will gather in the remnant of my people from every land where I drove them, and I will set them back in their pasture, and they shall increase and be multiplied.

And I will raise up for them shepherds who will shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear nor be terrified, says the Lord.

Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for Dauid a righteous Dawn, and he shall reign as king and shall understand, and shall do judgement and righteousness on the earth.

In his days Ioudas shall be saved, and Israel shall encamp in confidence; and this is his name by which the Lord shall call him: Iosedek.

Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no longer say: As the Lord lives, who brought up the house of Israel out of the land of Egypt,

but: As the Lord lives, who gathered all the seed of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where he drove them, and restored them to their own land.

Concerning the prophets: my heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble; I have become like a broken man and like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and because of the majesty of his glory.

For because of these the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness have dried up; and their course has become evil, and their strength is not as it should be.

For both priest and prophet have been defiled, and in my house I have seen their wicked deeds.

Therefore let their way become for them a slippery place in the gloom, and they shall be tripped up and shall fall on it; for I will bring evils upon them in the year of their visitation, declares the Lord.

And among the prophets of Samaria I saw lawless things: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray.

And among the prophets of Ierousalem I have seen horrible things: committing adultery and walking in falsehoods and upholding the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns back from his evil way. They have all become to me like Sodoma, and her inhabitants like Gomorra.

Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them anguish and give them bitter water to drink, for from the prophets of Ierousalem defilement has gone out to all the land.

Thus says the Lord Almighty: Do not listen to the words of the prophets, for they make a vision vain for themselves; they speak from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord.

They say to those who reject the word of the Lord: Peace shall be yours; and to everyone who walks after his own wishes, to everyone who walks in the error of his own heart, they have said: Evils shall not come upon you.

For who has stood in the Lord's foundation and seen his word? Who has given ear and heard?

Behold, an earthquake from the Lord, and wrath goes forth into a convulsion; whirling, it shall come upon the impious.

And the fury of the Lord shall not turn back until he has done it and until he has established it from the undertaking of his heart; at the end of days they shall understand these things.

I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

And if they had stood in my substance and had listened to my words, then they would have turned my people away from their evil practices.

I am a God who draws near, says the Lord, and not a God from afar.

If a man hides himself in secret places, shall I then not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.

I have heard what the prophets speak, what they prophesy falsely in my name, saying: I have dreamed a dream!

How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and in their prophesying the wishes of their own heart—

those who scheme to make my law forgotten through their dreams, which each recounted to his neighbour, just as their fathers forgot my name through Baal.

Let the prophet who has a dream recount his dream, and the one to whom my word has come, let him recount my word in truth. What is the chaff to the wheat? So are my words, says the Lord.

Are not my words like a blazing fire, says the Lord, and like an axe that splits rock?

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord God, who steal my words each from his neighbour.

Behold, I am against the prophets who put forth prophecies of the tongue and who doze their own drowsiness.

Behold, I am against the prophets who prophesy false dreams and recounted them and led my people astray by their lies and by their deceits. And I did not send them and did not command them, and they shall be of no benefit at all to this people.

And if this people, or a priest, or a prophet asks you, saying: What is the burden of the Lord?—then you shall say to them: You are the burden, and I will dash you down, says the Lord.

And as for the prophet and the priest and the people, whoever says: The burden of the Lord—I will punish that man and his house.

For thus shall you say, each to his neighbour and each to his brother: What has the Lord answered? and: What has the Lord spoken?

And do not name the burden of the Lord any more, for the burden shall be to each man his own word.

And: Why has the Lord our God spoken?

Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you said this word, The burden of the Lord, and I sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of the Lord—

therefore, behold, I am taking you up and dashing you down, you and the city which I gave to you and to your fathers.

And I will lay upon you everlasting reproach and everlasting dishonour, which shall not be forgotten.