Lamentations 2:14

The Message

Your prophets courted you with sweet talk. They didn’t face you with your sin so that you could repent. Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.

Cross References

Isaiah 58:1

“Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people— law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ and love having me on their side. But they also complain, ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’

Jeremiah 20:6

“‘And you, Pashur, you and everyone in your family will be taken prisoner into exile—that’s right, exile in Babylon. You’ll die and be buried there, you and all your cronies to whom you preached your lies.’” * * *

Jeremiah 28:15

So prophet Jeremiah told prophet Hananiah, “Hold it, Hananiah! God never sent you. You’ve talked the whole country into believing a pack of lies! And so God says, ‘You claim to be sent? I’ll send you all right—right off the face of the earth! Before the year is out, you’ll be dead because you instigated sedition against God.’”

Lamentations 4:13

Because of the sins of her prophets and the evil of her priests, Who exploited good and trusting people, robbing them of their lives,

Ezekiel 13:22

“‘Because you’ve confounded and confused good people, unsuspecting and innocent people, with your lies, and because you’ve made it easy for others to persist in evil so that it wouldn’t even dawn on them to turn to me so I could save them, as of now you’re finished. No more delusion-mongering from you, no more sermonic lies. I’m going to rescue my people from your clutches. And you’ll realize that I am God.’”

Ezekiel 23:36

Then God said to me, “Son of man, will you confront Oholah and Oholibah with what they’ve done? Make them face their outrageous obscenities, obscenities ranging from adultery to murder. They committed adultery with their no-god idols, sacrificed the children they bore me in order to feed their idols! And there is also this: They’ve defiled my holy Sanctuary and desecrated my holy Sabbaths. The same day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they walked into my Sanctuary and defiled it. That’s what they did—in my house!

Hosea 9:7

Time’s up. Doom’s at the doorstep. It’s payday! Did Israel bluster, “The prophet is crazy! The ‘man of the Spirit’ is nuts!”? Think again. Because of your great guilt, you’re in big trouble. The prophet is looking out for Ephraim, working under God’s orders. But everyone is trying to trip him up. He’s hated right in God’s house, of all places. The people are going from bad to worse, rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah. God’s keeping track of their guilt. He’ll make them pay for their sins.

Micah 3:8

But me—I’m filled with God’s power, filled with God’s Spirit of justice and strength, Ready to confront Jacob’s crime and Israel’s sin.