14 This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord, explaining why he was holding back the rain:

² Judah mourns; business has ground to a halt; all the people prostrate themselves to the earth, and a great cry rises from Jerusalem. ³ The nobles send servants for water from the wells, but the wells are dry. The servants return, baffled and desperate, and cover their heads in grief. ⁴ The ground is parched and cracked for lack of rain; the farmers are afraid. ⁵ The deer deserts her fawn because there is no grass. ⁶ The wild donkeys stand upon the bare hills panting like thirsty jackals. They strain their eyes looking for grass to eat, but there is none to be found.

⁷ O Lord, we have sinned against you grievously, yet help us for the sake of your own reputation! ⁸ O Hope of Israel, our Savior in times of trouble, why are you as a stranger to us, as one passing through the land who is merely stopping for the night? ⁹ Are you also baffled? Are you helpless to save us? O Lord, you are right here among us, and we carry your name; we are known as your people. O Lord, don’t desert us now!

¹⁰ But the Lord replies: You have loved to wander far from me and have not tried to follow in my paths. Now I will no longer accept you as my people; now I will remember all the evil you have done and punish your sins.

¹¹ The Lord told me again: Don’t ask me anymore to bless this people. Don’t pray for them anymore. ¹² When they fast, I will not pay any attention; when they present their offerings and sacrifices to me, I will not accept them. What I will give them in return is war and famine and disease.

¹³ Then I said, O Lord God, their prophets are telling them that all is well—that no war or famine will come. They tell the people you will surely send them peace, that you will bless them.

¹⁴ Then the Lord said: The prophets are telling lies in my name. I didn’t send them or tell them to speak or give them any message. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen nor heard; they speak foolishness concocted out of their own lying hearts. ¹⁵ Therefore, the Lord says, I will punish these lying prophets who have spoken in my name though I did not send them, who say no war shall come nor famine. By war and famine they themselves shall die! ¹⁶ And the people to whom they prophesy—their bodies shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and war; there shall be no one to bury them. Husbands, wives, sons, and daughters—all will be gone. For I will pour out terrible punishment upon them for their sins.

¹⁷ Therefore, tell them this: Night and day my eyes shall overflow with tears; I cannot stop my crying, for my people have been run through with a sword and lie mortally wounded on the ground. ¹⁸ If I go out in the fields, there lie the bodies of those the sword has killed; and if I walk in the streets, there lie those dead from starvation and disease. And yet the prophets and priests alike have made it their business to travel through the whole country, reassuring everyone that all is well, speaking of things they know nothing about.

¹⁹ “O Lord,” the people will cry, “have you completely rejected Judah? Do you abhor Jerusalem? Even after punishment, will there be no peace? We thought, Now at last he will heal us and bind our wounds. But no peace has come, and there is only trouble and terror everywhere. ²⁰ O Lord, we confess our wickedness, and that of our fathers too. ²¹ Do not hate us, Lord, for the sake of your own name. Do not disgrace yourself and the throne of your glory by forsaking your promise to bless us! ²² What heathen god can give us rain? Who but you alone, O Lord our God, can do such things as this? Therefore we will wait for you to help us.”