Jeremiah 23:16

23:16 The Lord who rules over all ¹  says to the people of Jerusalem: ² 

“Do not listen to what

those prophets are saying to you.

They are filling you with false hopes.

They are reporting visions of their own imaginations,

not something the Lord has given them to say. ³ 

Jeremiah 23:21

23:21 I did not send those prophets.

Yet they were in a hurry to give their message. ⁴ 

I did not tell them anything.

Yet they prophesied anyway.

Jeremiah 23:25

23:25 The Lord says, ⁵  “I have heard what those prophets who are prophesying lies in my name are saying. They are saying, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’ ⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

² tn The words “to the people of Jerusalem” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to reflect the masculine plural form of the imperative and the second masculine plural form of the pronoun. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “They tell of a vision of their own heart [= mind] not from the mouth of the Lord.”

⁴ tn Heb “Yet they ran.”

⁵ tn The words, “The Lord says” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show that the Lord continues speaking.

⁶ sn To have had a dream was not an illegitimate means of receiving divine revelation. God had revealed himself in the past to his servants through dreams (e.g., Jacob [Gen 31:10-11] and Joseph [Gen 37:6, 7, 9]) and God promised to reveal himself through dreams (Num 12:6; Joel 2:28 [3:1 HT]). What was illegitimate was to use the dream to lead people away from the Lord (Deut 13:1-5 [13:2-6 HT]). That was what the prophets were doing through their dreams which were “lies” and “the delusions of their own minds.” Through them they were making people forget who the Lord really was which was just like what their ancestors had done through worshiping Baal.