False Prophecy

³³ “When these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, ‘What is the message^(A) from the Lord?’ say to them, ‘What message? I will forsake^(B) you, declares the Lord.’ ³⁴ If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, ‘This is a message^(C) from the Lord,’ I will punish^(D) them and their household. ³⁵ This is what each of you keeps saying to your friends and other Israelites: ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’^(E) or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ ³⁶ But you must not mention ‘a message from the Lord’ again, because each one’s word becomes their own message. So you distort^(F) the words of the living God,^(G) the Lord Almighty, our God.

²⁵ There is a conspiracy^(A) of her princes^[a] within her like a roaring lion^(B) tearing its prey; they devour people,^(C) take treasures and precious things and make many widows^(D) within her.

²⁸ Her prophets whitewash^(A) these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations.^(B) They say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says’—when the Lord has not spoken.^(C)