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Restoration after Exile

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the L ord. ²Therefore thus says the L ord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the L ord. ³Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the L ord.

The Righteous Branch of David

⁵ The days are surely coming, says the L ord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The L ord is our righteousness.”

⁷ Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the L ord, when it shall no longer be said, “As the L ord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” ⁸but “As the L ord lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.” Then they shall live in their own land.

False Prophets of Hope Denounced

⁹ Concerning the prophets:

My heart is crushed within me,

all my bones shake;

I have become like a drunkard,

like one overcome by wine,

because of the L ord

and because of his holy words.

For the land is full of adulterers;

because of the curse the land mourns,

and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.

Their course has been evil,

and their might is not right.

Both prophet and priest are ungodly;

even in my house I have found their wickedness,

says the L ord.

Therefore their way shall be to them

like slippery paths in the darkness,

into which they shall be driven and fall;

for I will bring disaster upon them

in the year of their punishment,

says the L ord.

In the prophets of Samaria

I saw a disgusting thing:

they prophesied by Baal

and led my people Israel astray.

But in the prophets of Jerusalem

I have seen a more shocking thing:

they commit adultery and walk in lies;

they strengthen the hands of evildoers,

so that no one turns from wickedness;

all of them have become like Sodom to me,

and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.

Therefore thus says the L ord of hosts concerning the prophets:

“I am going to make them eat wormwood,

and give them poisoned water to drink;

for from the prophets of Jerusalem

ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”

¹⁶ Thus says the L ord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the L ord. ¹⁷They keep saying to those who despise the word of the L ord, “It shall be well with you”; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, “No calamity shall come upon you.”

For who has stood in the council of the L ord

so as to see and to hear his word?

Who has given heed to his word so as to proclaim it?

Look, the storm of the L ord!

Wrath has gone forth,

a whirling tempest;

it will burst upon the head of the wicked.

The anger of the L ord will not turn back

until he has executed and accomplished

the intents of his mind.

In the latter days you will understand it clearly.

I did not send the prophets,

yet they ran;

I did not speak to them,

yet they prophesied.

But if they had stood in my council,

then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,

and they would have turned them from their evil way,

and from the evil of their doings.

²³ Am I a God near by, says the L ord, and not a God far off? ²⁴Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the L ord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the L ord. ²⁵I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, “I have dreamed, I have dreamed!” ²⁶How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back—those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? ²⁷They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal. ²⁸Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the L ord. ²⁹Is not my word like fire, says the L ord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? ³⁰See, therefore, I am against the prophets, says the L ord, who steal my words from one another. ³¹See, I am against the prophets, says the L ord, who use their own tongues and say, “Says the L ord.” ³²See, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the L ord, and who tell them, and who lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or appoint them; so they do not profit this people at all, says the L ord.

³³ When this people, or a prophet, or a priest asks you, “What is the burden of the L ord?” you shall say to them, “You are the burden, and I will cast you off, says the L ord.” ³⁴And as for the prophet, priest, or the people who say, “The burden of the L ord,” I will punish them and their households. ³⁵Thus shall you say to one another, among yourselves, “What has the L ord answered?” or “What has the L ord spoken?” ³⁶But “the burden of the L ord” you shall mention no more, for the burden is everyone’s own word, and so you pervert the words of the living God, the L ord of hosts, our God. ³⁷Thus you shall ask the prophet, “What has the L ord answered you?” or “What has the L ord spoken?” ³⁸But if you say, “the burden of the L ord,” thus says the L ord: Because you have said these words, “the burden of the L ord,” when I sent to you, saying, You shall not say, “the burden of the L ord,” ³⁹therefore, I will surely lift you up and cast you away from my presence, you and the city that I gave to you and your ancestors. ⁴⁰And I will bring upon you everlasting disgrace and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

He adds here that it ought not to appear strange that the prophets were silent when they ought to have loudly cried out, because they were guilty themselves: and whence can freedom of speech come except from a good conscience? Hypocrites, who indulge themselves, are indeed often severe against others, and even more than necessary; but no one can dare honestly to cry out against wickedness, but he who is innocent. For he who condemns others seems to make a law for himself, according to what a heathen writer has said, (Cicero in Salustium.) Then the Prophet here shews to us why the prophets were not only idle, but were even like stocks and stones; for in speaking against wickedness, it was necessary for them in the first place to amend themselves; for their lives were wholly dissolute. As then they were of all the most wicked, they could not boldly cry out against others; and hence the Prophet condemns them, because their own impiety prevented them to perform their own duty.

It is, indeed, possible for one to live soberly, honestly, and justly, and yet to connive at the wickedness of others; but the Prophet here condemns the prophets and priests on two accounts, — for being mute, and for not undertaking God’s cause when they saw the land polluted with all kinds of defilements; and he then shews the fountain of this evil, that is, the cause why they were idle and wholly indifferent, and that was, because they dared not say a word against those crimes of which they were themselves guilty, yea, with which they were more loaded than even the common people. We now perceive the Prophet’s object in saying that both the priests and the prophets had acted impiously; ⁹⁰⁹⁰     This verb is used three times in Jeremiah 3:1, 2, and 9, and in every instance in the sense of defiling the land with adultery, and in the two last verses, with spiritual adultery — idolatry. It is rendered here passively by the Sept. and the Vulg., “have become defiled;” but it is most commonly used in a transitive sense; and so Jun. and Trem. render it here, and consider it, the land, as understood after it; and this is most consistent with the context, —
   For both prophet and priest have defiled it: Also in my house have I found Their wickedness, saith Jehovah.
   The “house” of God is here put in contrast with the land or the country; and in Jeremiah 23:15, it is expressly said that from Jerusalem pollution had gone forth throughout all the land. Idolatry is evidently what is meant throughout this passage, from verse 9 to 15 (Jeremiah 23:9-15). Calvin as to this verb has followed the Syriac version. — Ed. it was to shew, that their contempt of God, for which they were notorious, and also their wickedness, had taken away from them all power and freedom in acting.

It is added, Even in my house have I found their wickedness He enhances what he had said of their impiety; for they were not only infamous and wicked in common life, as to the duties of the Second Table; but they also corrupted the whole service of God, and the true Prophets were derided by them. For what was found to be the priests’ wickedness in the Temple, except that they practiced a sort of merchandise under the cover of the priesthood? and then the prophets vitiated and adulterated God’s worship; and what was religion to them but the means of filthy lucre or gain? When, therefore, the prophets thus trod under foot the service of God, corrupted and perverted the Law to make gain or to acquire power, their impiety was not only seen in the habits of daily life, but also in the very Temple of God, that is, with regard to the sacerdotal office.

Now, since this is true as to what took place under the Law, there is no wonder that such a base example is to be seen in the present day. And hence also is discovered the folly of the Papists, who think that they ingeniously evade every objection as to the crimes of the Pope and his filthy clergy, by saying that the Pope indeed may be wicked, as almost all of them have been, and that the same thing may be said of their mitred bishops; but that the Pope, as a Pope, cannot err, and that the bishops, as bishops, that is, in their government and office, are ruled by the Holy Spirit, because they represent the Church. But are they better than these ancient priests, whom God himself had expressly appointed, and to whom he commanded obedience to be rendered by the whole people? But the Prophet not only says here that they were wicked, that they acted impiously and wickedly towards their neighbors, that they committed plunders and robberies, that they were given to violence and rapacity, that they abandoned themselves to adultery and to every other crime; but he says also, that their wickedness was found in the very Temple, that is, in the very sacred office itself; for not only was their life wicked, but they also impiously and perfidiously corrupted the doctrine of God and subverted his worship.

⁹⁰ This verb is used three times in Jeremiah 3:1, 2, and 9, and in every instance in the sense of defiling the land with adultery, and in the two last verses, with spiritual adultery — idolatry. It is rendered here passively by the Sept. and the Vulg., “have become defiled;” but it is most commonly used in a transitive sense; and so Jun. and Trem. render it here, and consider it, the land, as understood after it; and this is most consistent with the context, — For both prophet and priest have defiled it: Also in my house have I found Their wickedness, saith Jehovah. The “house” of God is here put in contrast with the land or the country; and in Jeremiah 23:15, it is expressly said that from Jerusalem pollution had gone forth throughout all the land. Idolatry is evidently what is meant throughout this passage, from verse 9 to 15 (Jeremiah 23:9-15). Calvin as to this verb has followed the Syriac version. — Ed.