Jeremiah 5

²³Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

²⁴What if there are fifty righteous ones in the city? Will You really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous ones who are there?

⁹For the eyes of the Lord roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him. You have acted foolishly in this matter. From now on, therefore, you will be at war.”

³⁰I searched for a man among them to repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, so that I should not destroy it. But I found no one.

³All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

²God looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God.

³All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

⁴No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

¹⁶They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

²and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they will glory.”

¹²You must not swear falsely by My name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

¹Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the people of the land: “There is no truth, no loving devotion, and no knowledge of God in the land!

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

¹“Listen to this, O house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, who have descended from the line of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord, who invoke the God of Israel—but not in truth or righteousness—

²⁸Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the Lord their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.

³⁰“I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”

⁹For the eyes of the Lord roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him. You have acted foolishly in this matter. From now on, therefore, you will be at war.”

⁷I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me and accept correction.’ Then her dwelling place would not be cut off despite all for which I punished her. But they rose early to corrupt all their deeds.

¹³But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the Lord of Hosts.

²⁵So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

⁶My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

⁷Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the Lord.

⁹Whom is He trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To infants just weaned from milk? To babies removed from the breast?

¹⁰For they hear: “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there.”

⁵The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.

²²“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”

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

²⁰“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.

⁵Listen, my beloved brothers: Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him?

⁶But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into court?

²⁴Seeing the man’s sadness, Jesus said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!

¹⁴But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us.’

²⁶The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One.’

²⁷In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

²³Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

²⁴Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

⁷A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.

⁸Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.

²⁷Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain.

³Her princes are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, leaving nothing for the morning.

²The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

¹⁷Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way?

⁸Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

⁷So you are not to associate with these nations that remain among you. You must not call on the names of their gods or swear by them, and you must not serve them or bow down to them.

²¹They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.

¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

⁵those who bow on the rooftops to worship the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear by the Lord but also swear by Milcom,

⁴So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.

²⁷Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

²One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.

³So David sent and inquired about the woman, and he was told, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”

¹¹One man commits an abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter.

¹⁸You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁴You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

⁹Should I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”

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

²⁴Therefore the Lord God of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares: “Ah, I will be relieved of My foes and avenge Myself on My enemies.

²²O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete; He will not prolong your exile. But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

²The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and full of wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

⁹I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, who strikes the blow.

²⁷For this is what the Lord says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

⁹And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I am not your God.

⁸Surely the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the Lord.

⁷The king was enraged, and he sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.

⁶¹He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

⁶²He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

¹⁶But I will spare a few of them from sword and famine and plague, so that in the nations to which they go, they can recount all their abominations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

²⁰But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord.

⁸You have never heard; you have never understood; for a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew how deceitful you are; you have been called a rebel from birth.

⁶Now in the days of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

⁷I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it.

⁷They have been unfaithful to the Lord; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the New Moon will devour them along with their land.

⁷But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

¹⁴Therefore hear the word of the Lord, O scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.

¹⁵For you said, “We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

²Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to reside there.’

³Rather, Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to deliver us into the hands of the Chaldeans, so that they may put us to death or exile us to Babylon!”

²²“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel: ‘The days go by, and every vision fails’?

²³Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘I will put an end to this proverb, and in Israel they will no longer recite it.’ But say to them: ‘The days are at hand when every vision will be fulfilled.

¹⁴And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”

¹⁵Therefore this is what the Lord of Hosts says concerning the prophets: “I will feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”

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.

¹⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. You will die this year because you have preached rebellion against the Lord.’”

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!

¹³“Ah, Lord God!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”

²“How long will you go on saying such things? The words of your mouth are a blustering wind.

⁸For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the Lord has become to me a reproach and derision all day long.

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.

¹⁸Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.”

³Within two years I will restore to this place all the articles of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and carried to Babylon.

²⁹“Is not My word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?”

⁹Then the Lord reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.

⁵Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth, and My judgments go forth like lightning.

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.

⁶These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.

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.’”

¹⁰Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty men.

¹¹So the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. And the captain said to Elijah, “Man of God, the king declares, ‘Come down at once!’”

⁴⁹The Lord will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

¹⁶Warn the nations now! Proclaim to Jerusalem: “A besieging army comes from a distant land; they raise their voices against the cities of Judah.

¹⁹You will no longer see the insolent, a people whose speech is unintelligible, who stammer in a language you cannot understand.

¹¹Indeed, with mocking lips and foreign tongues, He will speak to this people

²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

⁹behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

²⁸Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are strung. The hooves of their horses are like flint; their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.

⁹For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.

¹³“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.”

¹⁶then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

³³A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

¹⁴Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has multiplied its fortified cities. But I will send fire upon their cities, and it will consume their citadels.

⁷All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their fathers.’

²⁶I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert. All its cities were torn down before the Lord, before His fierce anger.

¹⁵For I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north,” declares the Lord. “Their kings will come and set up their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. They will attack all her surrounding walls and all the other cities of Judah.

¹⁰Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the Lord.

²⁷For this is what the Lord says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

¹I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

²God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel:

⁸While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord God, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?”

¹³Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Oh, Lord God, will You bring the remnant of Israel to a complete end?”

⁸And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

⁹And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the Lord has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

⁴⁷Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance,

⁴⁸you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

⁸And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?’

⁹Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

²²And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.

¹³So I will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

²⁴So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

²⁵And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

²⁶‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”

²“Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

⁹And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’

¹⁰Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

⁸as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”

⁴⁰“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they cannot see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.”

¹³This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’

¹⁴In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

¹⁰when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,

¹¹and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

⁹You set a boundary they cannot cross, that they may never again cover the earth.

¹⁰He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

²⁹when He set a boundary for the sea, so that the waters would not surpass His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth.

⁵⁸If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God—

¹²⁰My flesh trembles in awe of You; I stand in fear of Your judgments.

²⁸All are hardened rebels, walking around as slanderers. They are bronze and iron; all of them are corrupt.

¹⁸If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and does not listen to them when disciplined,

¹²See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.

¹⁰For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”

⁷My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call to the Most High, He will by no means exalt them.

⁸They feed on the sins of My people and set their hearts on iniquity.

⁸who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the hills.

²²As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”

²³Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

²²Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O Lord our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have done all these things.

¹⁷Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness: He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.”

⁴⁵that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

²But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.

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

¹⁷Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.

²³The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

²⁴The Lord will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

¹⁷Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way?

¹⁸Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

²²O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete; He will not prolong your exile. But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

¹¹If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,

⁵They hold fast to their evil purpose; they speak of hiding their snares. “Who will see them?” they say.

²²Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet.

²“As for you, son of man, will you judge her? Will you pass judgment on the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her abominations

³and tell her that this is what the Lord God says: ‘O city who brings her own doom by shedding blood within her walls and making idols to defile herself,

⁹He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.

¹⁰They are crushed and beaten down; the helpless fall prey to his strength.

²²“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”

⁶You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the Lord.

⁴Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,

⁵asking, “When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales.

¹¹If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,

¹²let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole like those descending into the Pit.

¹²For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the Lord, even to the gate of Jerusalem.

²And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.

⁷A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands.

⁸And Ephraim boasts: “How rich I have become! I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors, they can find in me no iniquity that is sinful.”

²³Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹²Behold, these are the wicked—always carefree as they increase their wealth.

¹⁰Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’

⁶if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm,

²⁷Though his face is covered with fat and his waistline bulges with flesh,

²⁸he will dwell in ruined cities, in abandoned houses destined to become rubble.

⁹Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

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.

⁴Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

⁹Should I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”

¹⁴And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”

¹⁰In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing: Ephraim practices prostitution there, and Israel is defiled.

²Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.

¹²Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the Lord.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

⁴So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

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.