Like those who are blind we grope along the wall, like people without eyes we feel our way. We stumble at midday as if at twilight, among the vigorous, we are like the dead.
Give glory to the Lord, your God, before he brings darkness; Before your feet stumble on mountains at twilight; Before the light you look for turns to darkness, changes into black clouds.
The mother of seven faints away, breathing out her life; Her sun sets in full day, she is ashamed, abashed. Their survivors I will give to the sword in the presence of their enemies—oracle of the Lord.
“Come,” they said, “let us devise a plot against Jeremiah, for instruction will not perish from the priests, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. Come, let us destroy him by his own tongue. Let us pay careful attention to his every word.”
My hand is against the prophets who see false visions and who make lying divinations. They shall not belong to the community of my people. They shall not be written in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. Thus you shall know that I am the Lord.
Disaster after disaster, rumor upon rumor. They keep seeking a vision from the prophet; instruction from the priest is missing, and counsel from the elders.
See, days are coming—oracle of the Lord God— when I will send a famine upon the land: Not a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the Lord.