The Hebrew Prophets

I did not send prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

If they had stood in my counsel, and had made my words known to my people, I should have turned them from their evil way, and from their wicked doings.

Am I, think ye, a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?

Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him, saith the Lord? do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?

I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, and say: I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, and that prophesy the delusions of their own heart?

Who seek to make my people forget my name through their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour: as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream: and he that hath my word, let him speak my word with truth: what hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord?

Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord: and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

Therefore behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who steal my words every one from his neighbour.

Behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who use their tongues, and say: The Lord saith it.

Behold I am against the prophets that have lying dreams, saith the Lord: and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lying, and by their wonders: when I sent them not, nor commanded them, who have not profited this people at all, saith the Lord.

If therefore this people, or the prophet, or the priest shall ask thee, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt say to them: You are the burden: for I will cast you away, saith the Lord.

And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people that shall say: The burden of the Lord: I will visit upon that man, and upon his house.

Thus shall you say every one to his neighbour, and to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and what hath the Lord spoken?

And the burden of the Lord shall be mentioned no more, for every man's word shall be his burden: for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.

Thus shalt thou say to the prophet: What hath the Lord answered thee? and what hath the Lord spoken?

But if you shall say: The burden of the Lord: therefore thus saith the Lord: Because you have said this word: The burden of the Lord: and I have sent to you, saying: Say not, The burden of the Lord:

Therefore behold I will take you away carrying you, and will forsake you, and the city which I gave to you, and to your fathers, out of my presence.

And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall never be forgotten.

The Lord shewed me: and behold two baskets full of figs, set before the temple of the Lord: after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, and his chief men, and the craftsmen, and engravers of Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

One basket had very good figs, like the figs of the first season: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, because they were bad.

And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said: Figs, the good figs, very good: and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are bad.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Juda, whom I have sent forth out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good.