This weekly Tanach Podcast with Rabbi Yisroel Chaim Blumenthal has been brought to you by Jews for Judaism. Today we focus on Jeremiah Chapter 23 (part 2).
1. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flocks of My pasture! says the Lord.
2. Therefore, so says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds: You who pasture My people, you have scattered My flocks and have driven them away and have not taken care of them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your deeds, says the Lord.
3. And I will gather the remnant of My flocks from all the lands where I have driven them, and I will restore them to their dwellings and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
4. And I will set up shepherds over them and they shall pasture them, and they shall no longer fear nor shall they be dismayed, nor shall [any of them] be missing, says the Lord.
5. Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will set up of David a righteous shoot, and he shall reign a king and prosper, and he shall perform judgment and righteousness in the land.
6. In his days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is his name that he shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness.
7. Therefore, behold days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no longer say, "As the Lord lives, Who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,"
8. But, "As the Lord lives, Who brought up and Who brought the seed of the house of Israel from the northland and from all the lands where I have driven them, and they shall dwell on their land."
9. Because of the prophets my heart is broken within me, my bones shake, I was like a drunken man and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the Lord and because of His holy words.
10. For the land is full of adulterers, for because of oaths the land mourns, the dwellings in the wilderness are dried out, and their eagerness was evil and their power not right.
11. For both prophet and priest are false; even in My house have I found their evil, says the Lord.
12. Therefore, their way shall be for them like slippery places in the dark; let them be thrust and fall therein, for I will bring evil upon them, the year of their visitation, says the Lord.
13. And in the prophets of Samaria I saw unseemliness; they prophesied by Baal and misled My people Israel.
14. And in the prophets of Jerusalem I saw a horrible thing, committing adultery and going with falseness, and they encouraged evil-doers, that none returns from his evil; all of them were to Me as Sodom and her inhabitants as Gomorrah.
15. Therefore, so said the Lord of Hosts concerning the prophets: Behold I will feed them wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem has falseness emanated to the whole land.
16. So said the Lord of Hosts: Do not hearken to the words of the prophets who prophesy for you; they mislead you. The vision of their heart they speak, not from the mouth of the Lord.
17. They say to those who despise Me, "The Lord has spoken, 'You shall have peace, ' " and [to] everyone who follows the view of his heart they say, "No evil shall befall you."
18. For who stood in the council of the Lord and will see and hear His word? He who hearkened to His word and listened.
19. Behold a storm from the Lord has gone forth [with] fury, yea, a whirling storm, on the heads of the wicked it shall rest.
20. The Lord's anger shall not return until He executes it and until He fulfills the plans of His heart. At the end of days, you shall consider it perfectly.
21. I did not send the prophets yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.
22. And if they stood in My council, they should have let My people hear My words, so that they bring them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.
23. Am I a God from near, says the Lord, and not a God from afar?
24. Can a man hide in secret places that I should not see him? says the Lord. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? says the Lord.
25. I heard what the prophets said, those who prophesy in My name falsely, saying, "I have dreamed, I have dreamed."
26. How long [will this be]? Is it in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? But they are prophets of the deceit of their hearts,
27. Who think to cause My people to forget My name with their dreams that they tell, one to another, as their forefathers forgot My name through Baal.
28. The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream, and who has My word, let him tell My word as truth. What has the straw to do with the wheat? says the Lord.
29. Is not My word so like fire? says the Lord, and like a hammer that shatters a rock?
30. Therefore, behold I am against the prophets, says the Lord, those who steal My words from one another.
31. Behold I am against the prophets, says the Lord, those who train their tongues and say, "He says,"
32. Behold I am against those who prophesy with false dreams, says the Lord, and they tell them and mislead My people with their falsehoods and with their bewilderment, but I neither sent them nor commanded them, and they have not availed this people, says the Lord.
33. Now if this people or the prophet or priest asks you, saying, "What is the burden of the Lord?" And you shall say to them, "What burden? And I will forsake you, says the Lord."
34. And the prophet and the priest and the people who will say, "The burden of the Lord," I will visit retribution upon that man and upon his household.
35. So shall you say each one to his friend and each one to his brother, "What did the Lord reply?" or "What did the Lord speak?"
36. And "the burden of the Lord" you shall no longer mention, for the burden shall be to the man of His word although you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of Hosts, our God.
37. So shall you say to the prophet, "What has the Lord replied to you?" Or "What has the Lord spoken? "
38. But if you say, "The burden of the Lord," therefore, so says the Lord, since you have said this thing, "the burden of the Lord," and I sent to you saying, "You shall not say, 'the burden of the Lord,' "
39. Therefore, here I am, and I will exile you, and I will forsake you and the city that I gave you and your forefathers from before My presence.
40. And I will place upon you everlasting shame and everlasting embarrassment that shall not be forgotten.