Jeremiah 5:31

5:31 The prophets prophesy lies.

The priests exercise power by their own authority. ¹ 

And my people love to have it this way.

But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ² 

Jeremiah 6:14

6:14 They offer only superficial help

for the harm my people have suffered. ³ 

They say, ‘Everything will be all right!’

But everything is not all right! ⁴ 

Jeremiah 8:11

8:11 They offer only superficial help

for the hurt my dear people ⁵  have suffered. ⁶ 

They say, “Everything will be all right!”

But everything is not all right! ⁷ 

Jeremiah 23:17

23:17 They continually say ⁸  to those who reject what the Lord has said, ⁹ 

‘Things will go well for you!’ ¹⁰ 

They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts,

‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’

Jeremiah 28:2-5

28:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹¹  says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude ¹²  to the king of Babylon. 28:3 Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon. 28:4 I will also bring back to this place Jehoiakim’s son King Jeconiah of Judah and all the exiles who were taken to Babylon.’ Indeed, the Lord affirms, ¹³  ‘I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon.’”

28:5 Then the prophet Jeremiah responded to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the Lord’s temple.

Ezekiel 13:10-16

13:10 “‘This is because they have led my people astray saying, “All is well,” ¹⁴  when things are not well. When anyone builds a wall without mortar, ¹⁵  they coat it with whitewash. 13:11 Tell the ones who coat it with whitewash that it will fall. When there is a deluge of rain, hailstones ¹⁶  will fall and a violent wind will break out. ¹⁷  13:12 When the wall has collapsed, people will ask you, “Where is the whitewash you coated it with?”

13:13 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: In my rage I will make a violent wind break out. In my anger there will be a deluge of rain and hailstones in destructive fury. 13:14 I will break down the wall you coated with whitewash and knock it to the ground so that its foundation is exposed. When it falls you will be destroyed beneath it, ¹⁸  and you will know that I am the Lord. 13:15 I will vent my rage against the wall, and against those who coated it with whitewash. Then I will say to you, “The wall is no more and those who whitewashed it are no more – 13:16 those prophets of Israel who would prophesy about Jerusalem ¹⁹  and would see visions of peace for it, when there was no peace,” declares the sovereign Lord.’

Ezekiel 13:22

13:22 This is because you have disheartened the righteous person with lies (although I have not grieved him), and because you have encouraged the wicked person not to turn from his evil conduct and preserve his life.

Micah 3:11

3:11 Her ²⁰  leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, ²¹ 

her priests proclaim rulings for profit,

and her prophets read omens for pay.

Yet they claim to trust ²²  the Lord and say,

“The Lord is among us. ²³ 

Disaster will not overtake ²⁴  us!”

Micah 3:2

3:2 yet you ²⁵  hate what is good, ²⁶ 

and love what is evil. ²⁷ 

You flay my people’s skin ²⁸ 

and rip the flesh from their bones. ²⁹ 

Micah 2:1

Land Robbers Will Lose their Land

2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, ³⁰ 

those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. ³¹ 

As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, ³² 

because they have the power to do so.

[5:31]  ¹ tn Heb “they shall rule at their hands.” Since the word “hand” can be used figuratively for authority or mean “side” and the pronoun “them” can refer to the priests themselves or the prophets, the following translations have also been suggested: “the priests rule under their [the prophets’] directions,” or “the priests rule in league with them [the prophets].” From the rest of the book it would appear that the prophets did not exercise authority over the priests nor did they exercise the same authority over the people that the priests did. Hence it probably mean “by their own hand/power/authority.”

[5:31]  ² tn Heb “But what will you do at its end?” The rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “Nothing!”

[6:14]  ³ tn Heb “They heal [= bandage] the wound of my people lightly”; TEV “They act as if my people’s wounds were only scratches.”

[6:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “They say, ‘Peace! Peace!’ and there is no peace!”

[8:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[8:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “They heal the wound of my people lightly.”

[8:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “They say, ‘Peace! Peace!’ and there is no peace!”

[23:17]  ⁸ tn The translation reflects an emphatic construction where the infinitive absolute follows a participle (cf. GKC 343 §113.r).

[23:17]  ⁹ tc The translation follows the Greek version. The Hebrew text reads, “who reject me, ‘The Lord has spoken, “Things…”’” The Greek version is to be preferred here because of (1) the parallelism of the lines “reject what the Lord has said” // “follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts;” (2) the preceding context which speaks of “visions of their own imaginations not of what the Lord has given them;” (3) the following context which denies that they have ever had access to the Lord’s secrets; (4) the general contexts earlier regarding false prophecy where rejection of the Lord’s word is in view (6:14 [see there v. 10]; 8:11 [see there v. 9]); (5) the meter of the poetic lines (the Hebrew meter is 3/5/4/3; the meter presupposed by the translation is 5/3/4/3 with the 3’s being their words). The difference is one of vocalization of the same consonants. The vocalization of the MT is יְהוָה מְנַאֲצַי דִּבֶּר [mÿna’atsay dibber yÿhvah]; the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Greek would be vocalized as מְנַאֲצֵי דְּבַר יְהוָה (mÿna’atsey dÿvar yÿhvah).

[23:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “You will have peace.” But see the note on 14:13. See also 6:14 and 8:11.

[28:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for the explanation of this title.

[28:2]  ¹² sn See the study note on 27:2 for this figure. Hananiah is given the same title “the prophet” as Jeremiah throughout the chapter and claims to speak with the same authority (compare v. 2a with 27:21a). He even speaks like the true prophet; the verb form “I will break” is in the “prophetic perfect” emphasizing certitude. His message here is a contradiction of Jeremiah’s message recorded in the preceding chapter (compare especially v. 3 with 27:16, 19-22 and v. 4 with 22:24-28). The people and the priests are thus confronted with a choice of whom to believe. Who is the “true” prophet and who is the “false” one? Only fulfillment of their prophecies will prove which is which (see Deut 18:21-22).

[28:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[13:10]  ¹⁴ tn Or “peace.”

[13:10]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew word only occurs here in the Bible. According to L. C. Allen (Ezekiel [WBC], 1:202-3) it is also used in the Mishnah of a wall of rough stones without mortar. This fits the context here comparing the false prophetic messages to a nice coat of whitewash on a structurally unstable wall.

[13:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and you, O hailstones.”

[13:11]  ¹⁷ sn A violent wind will break out. God’s judgments are frequently described in storm imagery (Pss 18:7-15; 77:17-18; 83:15; Isa 28:17; 30:30; Jer 23:19; 30:23).

[13:14]  ¹⁸ tn Or “within it,” referring to the city of Jerusalem.

[13:16]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:11]  ²⁰ sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).

[3:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”

[3:11]  ²² tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”

[3:11]  ²³ tn Heb “Is not the Lord in our midst?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he is!”

[3:11]  ²⁴ tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”

[3:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the ones who.”

[3:2]  ²⁶ tn Or “good.”

[3:2]  ²⁷ tn Or “evil.”

[3:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “their skin from upon them.” The referent of the pronoun (“my people,” referring to Jacob and/or the house of Israel, with the Lord as the speaker) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”

[2:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.

[2:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”

[2:1]  ³² tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”