Jeremiah 23 - Douy-Rheims Bible Challoner Revision

¹ To the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble: I am become as a drunken man, and as a man full of wine, at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of his holy words.

² 0 Because the land is full of adulterers, because the land hath mourned by reason of cursing, the fields of the desert are dried up: and their course is become evil, and their strength unlike.

³ 1 For the prophet and the priest are defiled: and in my house I have found their wickedness, saith the Lord.

⁴ 2 Therefore their way shall be as a slippery way in the dark: for they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evils upon them, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord.

⁵ 3 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied in Baal, and deceived my people Israel.

⁶ 4 And I have seen the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lying in the peophets of Jerusalem: and they strengthened the hand of the wicked, that no man should return from his evil doings: that are all become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gamorrha.

⁷ 5 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts to the prophets: Behold I will feed them with wormwood, and I will give them gall to drink: for from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption has gone forth into all the land.

⁸ 6 Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hearken not to the words of the prophets that prophesy to you, and deceive you: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.

⁹ 7 They say tothem that blaspheme me: The Lord hath said: You shall have peace: and to every one that walketh in the perverseness of his own heart, they have said: No evil shall come to you.

¹⁰ 8 For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath seen and heard his word? Who hath considered his word and heard it?

¹¹ 9 Behold the whirlwind of the Lord's indignation shall come forth, and a tempest shall break out and come upon the head of the wicked.

¹² 0 The wrath of the Lord shall not return till he execute it, and till he accomplish the thought of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand his counsel.

¹³ 1 I did not send prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

¹⁴ 2 If they stood in my counsel, and had made my words known to my people, I should have turned them from their evil way and from their wicked doings.

¹⁵ 3 Am I, think ye, a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?

¹⁶ 4 Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him, saith the Lord? do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?

¹⁷ 5 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesylies in my name, and say: I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

¹⁸ 6 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, and that prophesy the delusions of their own heart?

¹⁹ 7 Who seek to make my people forget my name through their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbor: as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

²⁰ 8 The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream: and he that hath my word, let him speak my word with truth: what hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord?

²¹ 9 Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord: and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

²² 0 Therefore behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who steal my words every one from his neighbor.

²³ 1 Behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who use their tongues, and say: The Lord saith it.

²⁴ 2 Behold I am against the prophets that have lying dreams, saith the Lord: and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lying, and by their wonders: when I sent them not, nor commanded them, who have not profited this people at all, saith the Lord.

²⁵ 3 If therefore this people, or the prophet, or the priest shall ask thee, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt say to them: You are the burden: for I will cast you away, saith the Lord.

²⁶ 4 And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people that shall say: The burden of the Lord: I will visit upon that man, and upon his house.

²⁷ 5 Thus shall you say every one to his neighbor, and to his brother: What hath the Lord answered? and what hath the Lord spoken?

²⁸ 6 And the burden of the Lord shall be mentioned no more, for every man's word shall be his burden: for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.

²⁹ 7 Thus shalt thou say to the prophet: What hath the Lord answered thee? and what hath the Lord spoken?

³⁰ 8 But if you shall say: The burden of the Lord: therefore thus saith the Lord: Because you have said this word: The burden of the Lord: and I have sent to you saying: Say not, Tne burden of the Lord:

³¹ 9 Therefore behold I will take you away carrying you, and will forsake you, and the city which I gave to you, and to your fathers, out of my presence.

³² 0 And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall never be forgotten.

³³ The Lord shewed me: and behold two baskets full of figs, set before the temple of the Lord: after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, and his chief men, and the craftsmen, and engravers of Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

³⁴ One basket had very good figs, like the figs of the first season: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, because they were bad.

³⁵ And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: Figs, the good figs, very good: and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are bad.

³⁶ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

³⁷ Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Juda, whom I have sent forth out of this place into the land oif the Chaldeans, for their own good.

³⁸ And I will set my eyes upon them to be pacified, and I will bring them again into this land: and I will be their God: and I will build them up, and not pull them down: and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

³⁹ And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: because they shall return to me with their whole heart.

⁴⁰ And as the very bad figs, that cannot be eaten, because they are bad: thus saith the Lord: So will I give Sedecias the king of Juda, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that have remained in this city, and that dwell in the land of Egypt.