CHAPTER 23
1“Woe, negligent shepherds, who scatter the sheep of My flock, said the LORD. 2Therefore, said the LORD God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd My people, you have let my flocks scatter and dispersed them and did not attend to them. I am about to reckon with you for the evil of your acts, said the LORD. 3And I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock from the lands to which I dispersed them, and I will bring them back to their pasture, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4And I will raise up over them shepherds, and they shall shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear nor be frightened, and none shall be missing, said the LORD.”
5Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous shoot for David,
and a king shall reign and prosper,
and do justice and righteousness in the land.
6In his days Judah shall be rescued,
and Israel shall dwell secure.
This is his name that they shall call him:
The-LORD-Is-Our-Righteousness.
7“Therefore, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives, Who brought up the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 8But ‘As the LORD lives, Who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel from the land in the north and from all the lands to which I dispersed them,’ and they shall dwell on their soil.”
9Concerning the prophets:
My heart is broken within me,
All my bones flutter.
I have been like someone drunken,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the LORD
and because of His holy words.
10For adulterers have filled the land,
because of these the land is bleak,
the desert pastures are dry.
And their running is for evil,
and their valor is not so.
11For prophet and priest, too, are tainted.
Even in My house I found their evil,
—said the LORD.
12Therefore their way shall become for them
like slippery ground in the dark.
They shall be thrust down and fall on it.
For I will bring upon them evil,
the year of their reckoning,
—said the LORD.
13And in the prophets of Samaria
I have seen a senseless thing—
they prophesied by Baal
and led astray My people Israel.
14And in the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen a frightful thing—
adultery and walking in lies,
and they strengthened the hands of evildoers
so none turned back from his evil.
They all have become to me like Sodom,
and its dwellers like Gomorrah.
15Therefore thus said the LORD of Armies concerning the prophets:
I am about to feed you wormwood
and make you drink a poisoned draft,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
a taint spreads out to all the land.
16Thus said the LORD of Armies:
Do not heed the word of the prophets
who prophesy to you.
Their own heart’s vision they speak,
not from the mouth of the LORD.
17They repeatedly say to those who despise the word of the LORD,
“It will go well with you,”
And to each who goes in the stubbornness of his heart,
“Evil will not come upon you.”
18For who has stood in the LORD’s council
and seen and heard His words?
Who has attended to My word and heard it?
19Look, the tempest of the LORD!
Wrath springs out and a whirling storm
on the heads of the wicked it whirls.
20The LORD’s anger shall not turn back
till it does and carries out
what His heart has plotted.
you shall surely grasp this.
21I did not send the prophets,
but they went running.
I did not speak to them,
but they prophesied.
22And had they stood in My council
and heard My words about My people,
they would have turned them back from their evil way
and from the evil of their acts.
23Am I not a nearby God, said the LORD,
and not a far-off God?
24If a man should hide in secret places,
would I not see him? said the LORD.
do not I fill? said the LORD.
25I have heard what the prophets said prophesying in My name with lies, saying, “I have dreamed a dream.” 26How long will there be in the heart of the prophets prophesying lies the deception of their heart? 27Who aim to make My people forget My name with their dreams that they recount to each other, and their fathers forgot My name through Baal. 28The prophet with whom there is a dream, let him recount the dream. And he with whom My word is, let him speak words of truth. What does straw have to do with grain? said the LORD. 29Is not My word like fire, said the LORD, and like a hammer splitting rock? 30Therefore here I am against the prophets, said the LORD, who steal My word from each other. 31Here I am against the prophets, said the LORD, who take up their tongues and deliver an oracle. 32Here I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, said the LORD, and recount them and lead My people astray with their lies and with their inconstancy when I did not send them nor charge them, and they surely will not avail for this people, said the LORD. 33And should the people, or the prophet or the priest ask you, saying, “What is the burden of the LORD?,” you shall say to them, “You are the burden,” and I will abandon you, said the LORD. 34As to the prophet or the priest or the people who will say “The burden of the LORD,” I will reckon with that man and with his household. 35Thus shall you say each man to his fellow and each man to his brother, “What has the LORD answered and what has the LORD spoken?” 36But “the burden of the LORD” you shall no longer mention, for “the burden” becomes each man’s own word, and you overturn the words of the living God, the LORD of Armies, our God. 37Thus shall you say to the people, “What has the LORD answered you, and what has the LORD spoken?” 38And if you all say “the burden of the LORD,” thus said the LORD, inasmuch as you have said this word, “the burden of the LORD” when I sent to you saying you shall not say “the burden of the LORD,” 39therefore, I will surely lift you as a burden and abandon you from My presence and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, 40and I will give you everlasting shame and everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.