A Message of Hope
The Lord said:
1 You leaders of my people are like shepherds that kill and scatter the sheep. 2 You were supposed to take care of my people, but instead you chased them away. So now I'll punish you severely and make you pay for your crimes!
3 I will bring the rest of my people home from the lands where I have scattered them, and they will grow into a mighty nation. 4 I promise to choose leaders who will care for them like real shepherds. All of my people will be there, and they will never again be frightened.
5 Someday I will appoint
an honest king
from the family of David,
a king who will be wise
and rule with justice.
6 As long as he is king,
Israel will have peace,
and Judah will be safe.
The name of this king will be
“The Lord Gives Justice.”
7 A time will come when you will again worship me. But you will no longer call me the Living God who rescued Israel from Egypt. 8 Instead, you will call me the Living God who rescued you from the land in the north and from all the other countries where I had forced you to go. And you will once again live in your own land.
Jeremiah Thinks about Unfaithful Prophets
9 When I think of the prophets,
I am shocked, and I tremble
like someone drunk,
because of the Lord
and his sacred words.
10 Those unfaithful prophets
misuse their power
all over the country.
So God turned the pasturelands
into scorching deserts.
The Lord Will Punish Unfaithful Prophets
11 The Lord told me to say:
You prophets and priests
think so little of me, the Lord,
that you even sin
in my own temple!
12 Now I will punish you
with disaster,
and you will slip and fall
in the darkness.
I, the Lord, have spoken.
13 The prophets in Samaria
were repulsive to me,
because they preached
in the name of Baal
and led my people astray.
14 And you prophets in Jerusalem
are even worse.
You're unfaithful in marriage
and never tell the truth.
You even lead others to sin
instead of helping them
turn back to me.
You and the people of Jerusalem
are evil like Sodom
and Gomorrah.
15 You prophets in Jerusalem
have spread evil everywhere.
That's why I, the Lord, promise
to give you bitter poison
to eat and drink.
The Lord Gives a Warning
The Lord said:
16 Don't listen to the lies
of these false prophets,
you people of Judah!
The message they preach
is something they imagined;
it did not come from me,
the Lord All-Powerful.
17 These prophets go to people
who refuse to respect me
and who are stubborn
and do whatever they please.
The prophets tell them,
“The Lord has promised
everything will be fine.”
18 But I, the Lord, tell you
that these prophets
have never attended a meeting
of my council in heaven
or heard me speak.
19 They are evil! So in my anger
I will strike them
like a violent storm.
20 I won't calm down,
until I have finished
what I have decided to do.
Someday you will understand
exactly what I mean.
21 I did not send these prophets
or speak to them,
but they ran to find you
and to preach their message.
22 If they had been in a meeting
of my council in heaven,
they would have told
you people of Judah
to give up your sins
and come back to me.
23 I am everywhere—
both near and far,
24 in heaven and on earth.
There are no secret places
where you can hide from me.
25 These unfaithful prophets claim that I have given them a dream or a vision, and then they tell lies in my name. 26 But everything they say comes from their own twisted minds. How long can this go on? 27 They tell each other their dreams and try to get my people to reject me, just as their ancestors left me and worshiped Baal. 28 Their dreams and my truth are as different as straw and wheat. But when prophets speak for me, they must say only what I have told them. 29 My words are a powerful fire; they are a hammer that shatters rocks.
30-32 These unfaithful prophets claim I give them their dreams, but it isn't true. I didn't choose them to be my prophets, and yet they babble on and on, speaking in my name, while stealing words from each other. And when my people hear these liars, they are led astray instead of being helped. So I warn you that I am now the enemy of these prophets. I, the Lord, have spoken.
News and Nuisance
The Lord said to me:
33 Jeremiah, when a prophet or a priest or anyone else comes to you and asks, “Does the Lord have news for us?” tell them, “You people are a nuisance to the Lord, and he will get rid of you.”
34 If any of you say, “Here is news from the Lord,” I will punish you and your families, even if you are a prophet or a priest. 35 Instead, you must ask your friends and relatives, “What answer did the Lord give?” or “What has the Lord said?” 36 It seems that you each have your own news! So if you say, “Here is news from the Lord,” you are twisting my words into a lie. Remember that I am your God, the Lord All-Powerful.
37 If you go to a prophet, it's all right to ask, “What answer did the Lord give to my question?” or “What has the Lord said?” 38 But if you disobey me and say, “Here is news from the Lord,” 39 I will pick you up and throw you far away. And I will abandon this city of Jerusalem that I gave to your ancestors. 40 You will never be free from your shame and disgrace.
Hope for the Future
1 How terrible will be the Lord's judgment on those rulers who destroy and scatter his people! 2 This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the rulers who were supposed to take care of his people: “You have not taken care of my people; you have scattered them and driven them away. Now I am going to punish you for the evil you have done. 3 I will gather the rest of my people from the countries where I have scattered them, and I will bring them back to their homeland. They will have many children and increase in number. 4 I will appoint rulers to take care of them. My people will no longer be afraid or terrified, and I will not punish them again. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
5 The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will choose as king a righteous descendant of David. That king will rule wisely and do what is right and just throughout the land. 6 When he is king, the people of Judah will be safe, and the people of Israel will live in peace. He will be called ‘The Lord Our Salvation.’
7 “The time is coming,” says the Lord, “when people will no longer swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. 8 Instead, they will swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of a northern land and out of all the other countries where I had scattered them. Then they will live in their own land.”
Jeremiah's Message about the Prophets
9 My heart is crushed,
and I am trembling.
Because of the Lord,
because of his holy words,
I am like a man who is drunk,
someone who has had too much wine.
10 The 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.
11 The Lord says,
“The prophets and the priests are godless;
I have caught them doing evil in the Temple itself.
12 The 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.
13 I 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.”
16 The 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. 17 To 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 them.”
18 I 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. 19 His anger is a storm, a furious wind that will rage over the heads of the wicked, 20 and it will not end until he has done everything he intends to do. In days to come his people will understand this clearly.”
21 The 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. 22 If 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. 24 No one can hide where I cannot see them. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth? 25 I know what those prophets have said who speak lies in my name and claim that I have given them my messages in their dreams. 26 How much longer will those prophets mislead my people with the lies they have invented? 27 They think that the dreams they tell will make my people forget me, just as their ancestors forgot me and turned to Baal. 28 The 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? 29 My message is like a fire and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces. 30 I am against those prophets who take each other's words and proclaim them as my message. 31 I am also against those prophets who speak their own words and claim they came from me. 32 Listen 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 Lord's Burden
33 The 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 say, ‘You are a burden to the Lord, and he is going to get rid of you.’ 34 If 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. 35 Instead, each one of them should ask their friends and their relatives, ‘What answer has the Lord given? What has the Lord said?’ 36 So they must no longer use the words ‘the Lord's burden,’ because if any of them do, I will make my message a real burden to them. The people have perverted the words of their God, the living God, the Lord Almighty. 37 Jeremiah, ask the prophets, ‘What answer did the Lord give you? What did the Lord say?’ 38 And if they disobey my command and use the words ‘the Lord's burden,’ then tell them that 39 I will certainly pick them up and throw them far away from me, both them and the city that I gave to them and their ancestors. 40 I will bring on them everlasting shame and disgrace that will never be forgotten.”