Jeremiah

This will be his name:
The Lord Makes Things Right for Us. a
JEREMIAH 23:7
7“So the time is coming,” says the Lord,
“when people will not make a promise by
saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the one
who brought the Israelites out of the land of
Egypt ….’ 8But people will say something
new: ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the one
who brought the Israelites out of the land of
the north and out of all the countries where
he had sent them ….’ Then the people of
Israel will live in their own land.”
Judgments Against False Prophets
9 A message to the prophets:
I am very sad—my heart is broken.
All my bones are shaking.
Because of the Lord and his holy words,
I am like a man who is drunk.
10 The land of Judah* is full of people who
commit adultery.*
They are unfaithful in many ways.
The Lord cursed the land,
and it became very dry.
The plants are dried and dying in the
pastures.
The fields have become like the desert.
The prophets are evil.
They use their influence and power in
the wrong way.
11 “ The prophets and even the priests are evil.
I have seen them doing evil things in
my own Temple.*”
This message is from the Lord.
12 “ {I will stop giving my messages to them.}
They will walk in darkness.
The road will be slippery for those
prophets and priests,
and they will fall in that darkness.
I will bring disaster on them;
I will punish them.”
This message is from the Lord.
13 “ I saw the prophets of Samaria* doing
wrong things.
I saw them prophesy* in the name of the
false god Baal.*
They led the people of Israel away from
the Lord.
14 I have even seen the prophets of Jerusalem
doing sinful things.
They are committing adultery*
and living a life of lies.
They support their fellow prophets
and never stop doing evil.
They have become like Sodom*;
they are all like Gomorrah.*”
15 So this is what the Lord All-Powerful says
about those Jerusalem prophets:
a 23:6 The Lo r d Makes Things Right for Us This is a
wordplay. In Hebrew this is like the name Zedekiah,
the king of Judah at the time this prophecy was
probably given. But Jeremiah is talking about
another king.
622
“ I will make them suffer.
Their food will be bitter, their water like
poison.
I will punish them because they started a
spiritual sickness
that spread through the whole country.
16 This is what the Lord All-Powerful says:
“ Don’t pay attention to what those
prophets are saying to you.
They are trying to fool you.
They talk about visions,*
but they did not get their visions from
me.
Their visions come from their own minds.
17 Some of the people hate the real messages
from the Lord,
so the prophets give them a different
message.
They say, ‘You will have peace.’
Some of the people are very stubborn.
They do only what they want to do.
So the prophets say,
‘ Nothing bad will happen to you!’
18 But none of these prophets has stood in
the heavenly council. b
None of them has seen or heard the
message from the Lord.
None of them has paid close attention to
his message.
19 Now the punishment from the Lord will
come like a storm.
His anger will be like a tornado.
It will come crashing down on the
heads of those wicked people.
20 The Lord’s anger will not stop
until he finishes what he plans to do.
When that day is over,
you will understand this clearly.
21 I did not send those prophets,
but they ran to tell their messages.
I did not speak to them,
but they spoke in my name.
22 If they had stood in my heavenly council,
then they would have told my messages
to the people of Judah.
They would have stopped the people from
doing bad things.
They would have stopped them from
doing evil.”
23 This message is from the Lord.
“ I am God, and I am always near.
I am not far away.
24 Someone might try to hide from me in
some hiding place.
But it is easy for me to see that person,
because I am everywhere in heaven and
earth.”
This is what the Lord said.
b 23:18 heavenly council The people in the Old
Testament often talk about God as the leader of
a council of heavenly beings (angels). Compare
1 Kings 22:19‑23; Isa. 6:1‑8 and Job 1 and 2.