23 ¶ Woe be unto the pastors that waste and scatter the sheep of my pasture! said the LORD.
2 Therefore thus hath the LORD God of Israel said unto the pastors that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them; behold, I visit upon you the evil of your doings, said the LORD.
3 And I will gather the remnant of my sheep out of all the lands where I have driven them and will cause them to return to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
4 And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed neither shall they be lacking, said the LORD.
5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this shall be his name by which they shall call him, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
7 Therefore, behold, the days come, said the LORD, and they shall no longer say, The LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
8 but, The LORD lives, who caused the seed of the house of Israel to come up and out of the land of the north wind, and from all the lands where I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land.
9 ¶ My heart is broken within me because of the prophets, all my bones shake; I was like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, before the LORD, and before the words of his holiness.
10 For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the oath the land is deserted; the booths of the wilderness are dried up, and their course was evil, and their force was not right.
11 For both prophet and priest are feigned; even in my house I have found their wickedness, said the LORD.
12 Therefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be driven on and fall therein; for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.
13 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal and caused my people Israel to err.
14 I have also seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem: they committed adultery and walked by lies; they strengthened also the hands of evildoers, that no one is converted from his malice; they are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
15 Therefore, thus hath the LORD of the hosts said against those prophets: Behold, I will cause them to eat wormwood and make them drink the waters of gall, for from the prophets of Jerusalem is hypocrisy gone forth upon all the land.
16 Thus hath the LORD of the hosts said, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.
17 They say boldly unto those that stir me to anger, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto anyone that walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.
18 For who has stood in the secret of the LORD and has seen and heard his word? Who has paid attention to his word and heard it?
19 Behold, that the whirlwind of the LORD shall go forth with fury, and the whirlwind which is ready shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.
20 The anger of the LORD shall not return until he has executed and until he has performed the thoughts of his heart: in the last of the days ye shall understand it with understanding.
21 I did not send those prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.
22 But if they had stood in my secret, they would also have caused my people to hear my words, and they would have caused them to return from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
23 Am I a God of the near only, said the LORD, and not a God of the far?
24 Can any hide himself in hiding places that I shall not see him? said the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? said the LORD.
25 I have heard what those prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies and that prophesy the deceit of their own heart?
27 Do they not think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which each one tells his neighbour, so much that their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal?
28 The prophet with whom the dream came, let him tell the dream; and he with whom my word came, let him speak my true word. What is the chaff to the wheat? said the LORD.
29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words each one from his neighbour.
31 Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that sweeten their tongues and say, He said.
32 Behold, I am against those that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and did tell them, and caused my people to err by their lies, and by their flattery; yet I did not send them, nor command them; and they did not profit this people at all, said the LORD.
33 ¶ And when this people or the prophet or the priest shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will forsake you, said the LORD.
34 And as for the prophet and the priest and the people, that shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will visit upon that man and upon his house.
35 Thus shall ye say each one to his neighbour and each one to his brother, What has the LORD answered? and, What has the LORD spoken?
36 And never again shall it come to your memory to say, The burden of the LORD; for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of the hosts, our God.
37 Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What has the LORD answered thee? and, What has the LORD spoken?
38 But if ye say, The burden of the LORD; therefore thus hath the LORD said: Because ye say this word, The burden of the LORD, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD;
39 therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will uproot you from my presence and the city that I gave you and your fathers:
40 and I will place an everlasting reproach upon you, and eternal shame, which shall never be forgotten.
