1“Woe to shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares Yahweh.
2Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: “You have scattered my flock and driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” declares Yahweh.
3“Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands where I have driven 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 who will shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing,” declares Yahweh.
5“Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and act wisely, and he shall do justice and righteousness in the land.
6In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely, and this is the name by which he will be called: Yahweh Our Righteousness.
7“Therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when they will no longer say, ‘As Yahweh lives who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’
8but, ‘As Yahweh lives who brought up and who led the offspring of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where I had driven them,’ and they shall dwell on their own soil.”
9Concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble. I have become like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of Yahweh and because of his holy words.
10For the land is full of adulterers; because of a curse the land mourns, the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right.
11“For both prophet and priest are godless; even in my house I have found their evil,” declares Yahweh.
12“Therefore their way shall be to them like slippery places in the darkness; they will be driven on and fall in it. For I will bring disaster upon them, the year of their reckoning,” declares Yahweh.
13“In the prophets of Samaria I saw something offensive: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray.
14But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: committing adultery and walking in falsehood; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil. To me they have all become like Sodom, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
15Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I am about to feed them wormwood and make them drink poisoned water, for from the prophets of Jerusalem godlessness has gone out into all the land.”
16Thus says Yahweh of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are making you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of Yahweh.
17They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘Yahweh has spoken: You shall have peace,’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’
18For who has stood in the council of Yahweh to see and hear his word? Who has attended to my word and heard it?
19Behold, the storm of Yahweh! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will whirl down upon the head of the wicked.
20The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until he has carried out and accomplished the purposes of his heart. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
21“I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.
22But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people and turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.
23“Am I a God only near at hand,” declares Yahweh, “and not a God far off?
24Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares Yahweh. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares Yahweh.
25“I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’
26How long? Is there anything in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, the prophets of the deceit of their own heart —
27who plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they recount to one another, just as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?
28The prophet who has a dream, let him recount the dream, but the one who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What has the straw to do with the grain?” declares Yahweh.
29“Is not my word like fire?” declares Yahweh, “and like a hammer that shatters rock?
30“Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets,” declares Yahweh, “who steal my words from one another.
31Behold, I am against the prophets, declares Yahweh, who use their own tongues and declare, ‘He declares.’
32Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams, declares Yahweh; they recount them and lead my people astray with their lies and their recklessness — yet I did not send them, nor did I command them, and they bring no benefit at all to this people, declares Yahweh.
33And when this people, or a prophet, or a priest asks you, saying, ‘What is the burden of Yahweh?’ then you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden! And I will cast you off, declares Yahweh.’
34And as for the prophet, the priest, or the people who says, ‘The burden of Yahweh’ — I will punish that man and his household.
35Thus you shall say, each to his neighbor and each to his brother: ‘What has Yahweh answered?’ and ‘What has Yahweh spoken?’
36But ‘the burden of Yahweh’ you shall mention no more, for the burden becomes each man’s own word; and you have perverted the words of the living God, Yahweh of hosts, our God.
37Thus you shall say to the prophet: ‘What has Yahweh answered you?’ and ‘What has Yahweh spoken?’
38But if you say, ‘The burden of Yahweh,’ therefore thus says Yahweh: Because you say this word, ‘The burden of Yahweh,’ when I sent to you, saying, ‘You shall not say, The burden of Yahweh’ —
39therefore, behold, I will surely lift you up and cast you off from my presence — you and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers.
40And I will put upon you everlasting reproach and everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
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