Jeremiah 23

²¹For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

¹⁵And the Lord said to me: “Take up once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd.

¹⁶For behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will neither care for the lost, nor seek the young, nor heal the broken, nor sustain the healthy, but he will devour the flesh of the choice sheep and tear off their hooves.

²“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock?

³You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock.

³This is what the Lord God says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit yet have seen nothing.

³⁶When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

²²The wind will drive away all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Then you will be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness.

¹²O house of David, this is what the Lord says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds.

⁴The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day for your watchmen has come, the day of your visitation. Now is the time of their confusion.

³⁴Now go, lead the people to the place I described. Behold, My angel shall go before you. But on the day I settle accounts, I will punish them for their sin.”

³⁴As for the prophet or priest or anyone who claims, ‘This is the burden of the Lord,’ I will punish that man and his household.

²⁹Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

¹³I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she burned incense to them, when she adorned herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers. But Me she forgot,” declares the Lord.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹⁵I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

³⁷I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety.

⁵Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.

⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth—

¹⁴I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the Lord. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

³For behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore from captivity My people Israel and Judah, declares the Lord. I will restore them to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.’”

¹⁹Behold, at that time, I will deal with all who afflict you. I will save the lame and gather the scattered; and I will appoint praise and fame for the disgraced throughout the earth.

²⁰At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you. For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your captives before your very eyes,” says the Lord.

¹⁴“Return, O faithless children,” declares the Lord, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion.

¹⁵Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

⁵who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

²⁸Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.

²⁹I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.

²⁷My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.

²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.

²⁷But you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.

²⁸And you, My servant Jacob, do not be afraid, declares the Lord, for I am with you. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have banished you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

²But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel—One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.

³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,

³³and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

²On that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of Israel’s survivors.

¹³Behold, My Servant will prosper; He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

⁷Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

¹²And you are to tell him that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Here is a man whose name is the Branch, and He will branch out from His place and build the temple of the Lord.

¹³Yes, He will build the temple of the Lord; He will be clothed in splendor and will sit on His throne and rule. And He will be a priest on His throne, and there will be peaceful counsel between the two.’

⁸Hear now, O high priest Joshua, you and your companions seated before you, who are indeed a sign. For behold, I am going to bring My servant, the Branch.

³⁰It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God: our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

⁹and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.

¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.

²¹She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

²²All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

¹⁴Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.

²⁴Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

¹⁴Yet behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of Egypt.’

¹⁵Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their forefathers.

³Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock from all the lands to which I have banished them, and I will return them to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and multiply.

¹⁸“Do not call to mind the former things; pay no attention to the things of old.

¹⁹Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

³¹Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

³²It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹⁵I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

⁵Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.

⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth—

¹³I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, and in all the settlements of the land.

²⁸Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, when I regather them to their own land, not leaving any of them behind after their exile among the nations.

²⁰At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you. For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your captives before your very eyes,” says the Lord.

²⁴For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.

¹⁶I heard and trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Decay entered my bones; I trembled where I stood. Yet I must wait patiently for the day of distress to come upon the people who invade us.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.

²¹Therefore now hear this, you afflicted one, drunken, but not with wine.

²⁷I, Daniel, was exhausted and lay ill for days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business. I was confounded by the vision; it was beyond understanding.

³You have shown Your people hardship; we are staggered from the wine You made us drink.

¹⁵This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from My hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it.

¹⁶And they will drink and stagger and go out of their minds, because of the sword that I will send among them.”

³⁴and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.

²Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

³Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

⁷“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.

⁸They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife.

²If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

¹⁰I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹³“For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

⁴Her prophets are reckless, faithless men. Her priests profane the sanctuary; they do violence to the law.

¹²Then Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves.

¹³And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

³⁴They have placed their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it.

³⁹On the very day they slaughtered their children for their idols, they entered My sanctuary to profane it. Yes, they did this inside My house.

¹⁴Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their unfaithful deeds, following all the abominations of the nations, and they defiled the house of the Lord, which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.

⁶May their path be dark and slick, as the angel of the Lord pursues.

²³There will be no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”

¹⁹But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom; they do not know what makes them stumble.

³⁵Then Jesus told them, “For a little while longer, the Light will be among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

³⁴Now go, lead the people to the place I described. Behold, My angel shall go before you. But on the day I settle accounts, I will punish them for their sin.”

⁸The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.

¹⁶For those who guide this people mislead them, and those they mislead are swallowed up.

⁷The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have arrived—let Israel know it. The prophet is called a fool, and the inspired man insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and hostility.

⁸The prophet is Ephraim’s watchman, along with my God, yet the snare of the fowler lies on all his paths. Hostility is in the house of his God!

¹⁸“I have not troubled Israel,” Elijah replied, “but you and your father’s house have, for you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the Baals.

¹⁹Now summon all Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel, along with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

⁹So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

⁴⁰Then Elijah ordered them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let a single one escape.” So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered them there.

²³For they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with the wives of their neighbors and speaking lies in My name, which I did not command them to do. I am He who knows, and I am a witness, declares the Lord.”

⁹Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

²⁵The conspiracy of the princes in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing its prey. They devour the people, seize the treasures and precious things, and multiply the widows within her.

²⁰Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous,

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

²²Because you have disheartened the righteous with your lies, even though I have caused them no grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways to save their lives,

²³therefore you will no longer see false visions or practice divination. I will deliver My people from your hands. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁴Why are we just sitting here? Gather together, let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for the Lord our God has doomed us. He has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵Therefore this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.

²¹They poisoned my food with gall and gave me vinegar to quench my thirst.

⁵He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

¹¹The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter like wormwood oil, and many people died from the bitter waters.

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

⁶They see false visions and speak lying divinations. They claim, ‘Thus declares the Lord,’ when the Lord did not send them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their message.

¹³For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.

¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!

⁹As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be under a curse!

⁹But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums, or your sorcerers who declare, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’

¹⁰For they prophesy to you a lie that will serve to remove you from your land; I will banish you and you will perish.

³This is what the Lord God says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit yet have seen nothing.

¹¹Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the Lord, saying, “Is not the Lord among us? No disaster can come upon us.”

¹⁰These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.

¹⁰All the sinners among My people will die by the sword—all those who say, ‘Disaster will never draw near or confront us.’”

¹⁹because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

¹²They have lied about the Lord and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine.

⁵This is what the Lord says: “As for the prophets who lead My people astray, who proclaim peace while they chew with their teeth, but declare war against one who puts nothing in their mouths:

²²But if they had stood in My council, they would have proclaimed My words to My people and turned them back from their evil ways and deeds.”

¹⁴The Lord confides in those who fear Him, and reveals His covenant to them.

¹⁶“For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

⁷Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets.

¹⁵No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.

¹³Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or informed Him as His counselor?

¹⁴Whom did He consult to enlighten Him, and who taught Him the paths of justice? Who imparted knowledge to Him and showed Him the way of understanding?

²³Behold, the storm of the Lord has gone out with fury, a whirlwind swirling down upon the heads of the wicked.

³²This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Behold! Disaster is spreading from nation to nation; a mighty storm is rising from the ends of the earth.”

¹⁴So I will kindle a fire in the walls of Rabbah to consume its citadels amid war cries on the day of battle and a violent wind on the day of tempest.

¹This is the burden against the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.

²⁵When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever.

³The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.

⁴He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.

²⁴The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until He has fully accomplished the purposes of His heart. In the days to come you will understand this.

¹¹so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it.

¹Then Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather around so that I can tell you what will happen to you in the days to come:

³⁰There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the Lord.

⁶But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? They repented and said, ‘Just as the Lord of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.’”

²⁴The Lord of Hosts has sworn: “Surely, as I have planned, so will it be; as I have purposed, so will it stand.

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

¹⁵For I have not sent them, declares the Lord, and yet they are prophesying falsely in My name; therefore I will banish you, and you will perish—you and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

³²“Indeed,” declares the Lord, “I am against those who prophesy false dreams and retell them to lead My people astray with their reckless lies. It was not I who sent them or commanded them, and they are of no benefit at all to these people,” declares the Lord.

³¹“Send a message telling all the exiles what the Lord says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you—though I did not send him—and has made you trust in a lie,

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you, but you have persuaded this people to trust in a lie.

⁹For they are falsely prophesying to you in My name; I have not sent them, declares the Lord.”

⁴Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Turn now from your evil ways and deeds.’ But they did not listen or pay attention to Me, declares the Lord.

¹⁸But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and hear His word? Who has given heed to His word and obeyed it?

⁵The prophets told you, ‘Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and deeds, and you can dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever.

²²Because you have disheartened the righteous with your lies, even though I have caused them no grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways to save their lives,

¹⁵Again and again I have sent you all My servants the prophets, proclaiming: ‘Turn now, each of you, from your wicked ways, and correct your actions. Do not go after other gods to serve them. Live in the land that I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me.

²⁷For I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole will of God.

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

²You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar.

³Jonah, however, got up to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard to sail for Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

⁴Then the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship was in danger of breaking apart.

³²When you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass.

³³As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, with a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will rule over you.

⁵Who is like the Lord our God, the One enthroned on high?

²³Meanwhile, the servants of the king of Aram said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they prevailed over us. Instead, we should fight them on the plains; surely then we will prevail.

²⁸Then the man of God approached the king of Israel and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because the Arameans have said that the Lord is a god of the hills and not of the valleys, I will deliver all this great army into your hand. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

³The eyes of the Lord are in every place, observing the evil and the good.

⁷Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?

⁸You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

¹⁵Woe to those who dig deep to hide their plans from the Lord. In darkness they do their works and say, “Who sees us, and who will know?”

²Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.

³Though they hide themselves atop Carmel, there I will track them and seize them; and though they hide from Me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them.

¹⁵For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.

³²“Indeed,” declares the Lord, “I am against those who prophesy false dreams and retell them to lead My people astray with their reckless lies. It was not I who sent them or commanded them, and they are of no benefit at all to these people,” declares the Lord.

²⁸And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

⁸For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you, and do not listen to the dreams you elicit from them.

²⁸Let the prophet who has a dream retell it, but let him who has My word speak it truthfully. For what is straw compared to grain?” declares the Lord.

⁶He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will reveal Myself to him in a vision; I will speak to him in a dream.

⁵Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

¹Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons,

²influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

¹³The harm they will suffer is the wages of their wickedness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deception as they feast with you.

¹⁴Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed.

³For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

⁹The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder,

¹⁰and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.

⁵He has rejected your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?

³³And as soon as Gideon was dead, the Israelites turned and prostituted themselves with the Baals, and they set up Baal-berith as their god.

³⁴The Israelites failed to remember the Lord their God who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

⁷So the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

⁸But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.

⁶And again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. They served the Baals, the Ashtoreths, the gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab, and the gods of the Ammonites and Philistines. Thus they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him.

³For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal. He made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.

¹If a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you,

²and if the sign or wonder he has spoken to you comes about, but he says, “Let us follow other gods (which you have not known) and let us worship them,”

¹²I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, that He considered me faithful and appointed me to service.

¹⁷For we are not like so many others, who peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as men sent from God.

⁴²And the Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their portion at the proper time?

⁵An honest witness does not deceive, but a dishonest witness pours forth lies.

⁴⁵Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the others their food at the proper time?

²Now it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

¹²For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

¹⁴Therefore this is what the Lord God of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the wood it consumes.

³²They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

⁹If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.

⁴The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the flesh. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

⁵We demolish arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

⁵If anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone who wants to harm them must be killed.

²⁰But if any prophet dares to speak a message in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or to speak in the name of other gods, that prophet must be put to death.”

⁸Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Because you have uttered vain words and seen false visions, I am against you, declares the Lord God.

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

¹⁵Therefore this is what the Lord says about the prophets who prophesy in My name: I did not send them, yet they say, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ By sword and famine these very prophets will meet their end!

¹⁶But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to wipe out all memory of them from the earth.

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord God says: See, I am against the magic charms with which you ensnare souls like birds, and I will tear them from your arms. So I will free the souls you have ensnared like birds.

¹²For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

¹⁷They keep saying to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord says that you will have peace,’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, ‘No harm will come to you.’

¹⁰Now Zedekiah son of Chenaanah had made for himself iron horns and declared, “This is what the Lord says: ‘With these you shall gore the Arameans until they are finished off.’”

¹¹And all the prophets were prophesying the same, saying, “Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

¹⁰They say to the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions.

⁵So the king of Israel assembled the prophets, four hundred men, and asked them, “Should we go to war against Ramoth-gilead, or should we refrain?” “Go up,” they replied, “and God will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

¹⁹And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab king of Israel to march up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one suggested this, and another that.

²⁰Then a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ asked the Lord.

¹¹If a man of wind were to come and say falsely, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be just the preacher for this people!

⁴Her prophets are reckless, faithless men. Her priests profane the sanctuary; they do violence to the law.

⁷Haven’t you seen a false vision and spoken a lying divination when you proclaim, ‘Thus declares the Lord,’ even though I have not spoken?

⁸Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Because you have uttered vain words and seen false visions, I am against you, declares the Lord God.

¹⁴The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

³¹“Send a message telling all the exiles what the Lord says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you—though I did not send him—and has made you trust in a lie,

⁸But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail.

¹⁴Disregard them! They are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

¹This is the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi:

⁷I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance. I have given the beloved of My soul into the hands of her enemies.

¹This is the burden against Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite:

¹²Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them!

¹⁹When the Lord saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.

²⁰He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation—children of unfaithfulness.

¹This is the burden that Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision:

³And if anyone still prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, ‘You shall not remain alive, because you have spoken falsely in the name of the Lord.’ When he prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will pierce him through.

¹⁴The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

³⁴No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

³Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

⁴“I have heard you,” replied Jeremiah the prophet. “I will surely pray to the Lord your God as you request, and I will tell you everything that the Lord answers. I will not withhold a word from you.”

¹¹No longer will each one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.

⁸For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because they spoke and acted against the Lord, defying His glorious presence.

¹⁶He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

¹⁰But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.

⁸They will be made to stumble, their own tongues turned against them. All who see will shake their heads.

³What will He do to you, and what will be added to you, O deceitful tongue?

⁴Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

¹³Moreover, the priests and Levites from all their districts throughout Israel stood with Rehoboam.

¹⁴For the Levites left their pasturelands and their possessions and went to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the Lord.

³³“Now when this people or a prophet or priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you are to say to them, ‘What burden? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.’

¹⁸Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. Although they shout loudly in My ears, I will not listen to them.”

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord God says to them: ‘Behold, I Myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

¹²“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Why should you be afraid of mortal man, of a son of man who withers like grass?

⁹They will suffer the penalty of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might,

⁴¹Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

¹¹But the Lord is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten.

¹⁴I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

¹⁵So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the Lord, have spoken.

¹⁸For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as My anger and wrath were poured out on the residents of Jerusalem, so will My wrath be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will become an object of cursing and horror, of vilification and disgrace, and you will never see this place again.’

³⁷You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

⁹I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

⁸Why are you provoking Me to anger by the work of your hands by burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to reside? As a result, you will be cut off and will become an object of cursing and reproach among all the nations of the earth.

⁹Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers and of the kings of Judah and their wives, as well as the wickedness that you and your wives committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?