Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: ²  My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed. I tremble all over. ³  I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, ⁴  because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated. ⁵ 

“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. ¹  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” ²  says the Lord. “For ³  I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

You who have escaped the sword, ¹  go, do not delay. ²  Remember the Lord in a faraway land. Think about Jerusalem. ³ 

The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. In days to come you will come to understand this. ¹ 

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 

Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ²  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ³ 

Because of this the land will mourn and the sky above will grow black. ¹  For I have made my purpose known ²  and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ³ 

You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ¹  They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ²  They always talk about you, but they really care nothing about you. ³ 

The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ¹  In days to come ²  you people will come to understand this clearly. ³ 

But correct the way you have been living and do what is right. ¹  Obey the Lord your God. If you do, the Lord will forgo destroying you as he threatened he would. ² 

If you people who remain in Judah do that, then listen to what the Lord says. The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says, ‘If you are so determined ²  to go to Egypt that you go and settle there,

You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!” ¹ 

When they have drunk it, they will stagger to and fro ¹  and act insane. For I will send wars sweeping through them.” ² 

Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message. I will not speak as his messenger ¹  any more.” But then ²  his message becomes like a fire locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. ³  I grow weary of trying to hold it in; I cannot contain it.

King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ¹  Did not ²  the Lord forgo destroying them ³  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁴ 

All the people who are determined to go and settle in Egypt will die from war, starvation, or disease. No one will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them.’

They are saying, ¹  ‘Announce to the surrounding nations, ²  “The enemy is coming!” ³  Proclaim this message ⁴  to Jerusalem: “Those who besiege cities ⁵  are coming from a distant land. They are ready to raise the battle cry against ⁶  the towns in Judah.”’

But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better. ¹ 

The Lord says, “I will put a curse on people who trust in mere human beings, who depend on mere flesh and blood for their strength, ²  and whose hearts ³  have turned away from the Lord.

But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, ¹  I will cancel the destruction ²  I intended to do to it.