Page:JPS-1917-Universal.djvu/617

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JEREMIAH
NaN.21

9Concerning the prophets.


My heart within me is broken,
All my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
And like a man whom wine hath overcome;
Because of the Lord,
And because of His holy words.
10For the land is full of adulterers;
For because of swearing the land mourneth,
The pastures of the wilderness are dried up;
And their course is evil,
And their force is not right.
11For both prophet and priest are ungodly;
Yea, in My house have I found their wickedness,
Saith the Lord.
12Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery places in the darkness,
They shall be thrust, and fall therein;
For I will bring evil upon them,
Even the year of their visitation,
Saith the Lord.
13And I have seen unseemliness in the prophets of Samaria:
They prophesied by Baal,
And caused My people Israel to err.
14But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing:
They commit adultery, and walk in lies,
And they strengthen the hands of evil-doers,
That none doth return from his wickedness;
They are all of them become unto Me as Sodom,
And the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

15Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:

Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,
And make them drink the water of gall;
For from the prophets of Jerusalem
Is ungodliness gone forth into all the land.
16Thus saith the Lord of hosts:
Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you,
They lead you unto vanity;
They speak a vision of their own heart,
And not out of the mouth of the Lord.
17They say continually unto them that despise Me:
'The Lord hath said: Ye shall have peace';
And unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say:
'No evil shall come upon you';
18For who hath stood in the council of the Lord,
That he should perceive and hear His word?
Who hath attended to His word, and heard it?
19Behold, a storm of the Lord is gone forth in fury,
Yea, a whirling storm;
It shall whirl upon the head of the wicked.
20The anger of the Lord shall not return,
Until He have executed, and till He have performed the purposes of His heart;
In the end of days ye shall consider it perfectly.
21I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran;
I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

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