Jeremiah 23:16-32

Common English Bible

¹⁶ The Lord proclaims:
Don’t listen to the prophets
    who are speaking to you;
        they are deceiving you.
    Their visions come from their own hearts,
        not from the Lord’s mouth.
¹⁷ They keep saying to those who scorn God’s message,
        “All will go well for you,”
    and to those who follow their own willful hearts,
        “Nothing bad will happen to you.”
¹⁸ But who has stood in the Lord’s council
    to listen to God’s word?
        Who has paid attention to his word and announced it?
¹⁹ Look! The Lord’s angry storm breaks out;
    it whirls around the heads of the wicked.
²⁰ The Lord’s fierce anger
    won’t turn back
    until it accomplishes all that he has planned.
In the days to come,
    you will understand what this means.

²¹ I didn’t send the prophets,
    yet they ran anyway.
I didn’t speak to them,
    yet they prophesied anyway.
²² If they had stood in my council,
    they would have proclaimed
    my words to my people;
        they would have turned them
        from their evil ways and deeds.
²³ The Lord declares, Am I a God
    who is only nearby and not far off?
²⁴ Can people hide themselves in secret places
    so I might not see them?
        Don’t I fill heaven and earth?