They Speak a Vision of Their Own Heart
9 Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of Yahweh, and because of his holy words. 10 “For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right; 11 for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says Yahweh. 12 Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh. 13 “I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. 14 In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.” 15 Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” 16 Yahweh of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh. 17 They say continually to those who despise me, ‘Yahweh has said, “You will have peace;”’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’ 18 For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should perceive and hear his word? Who has listened to my word, and heard it? 19 Behold, Yahweh’s storm, his wrath, has gone out. Yes, a whirling storm! It will burst on the head of the wicked. 20 Yahweh’s anger will not return until he has executed and performed the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it perfectly. 21 I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied. 22 But if they had stood in my council, then they would have caused my people to hear my words, and would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. 23 “Am I a God at hand,” says Yahweh, “and not a God afar off? 24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.
The prophets are tested not by their sincerity but by their effect, and the test is whether anyone turned from evil after hearing them.
Jeremiah's own state is given first, and it is physical: his heart broken, his bones shaking, like a man overcome with wine. He is not describing indignation at colleagues. The cause he names is because of Yahweh, and because of his holy words. What he has been shown has produced something closer to shock than to anger. The chapter that follows is the most sustained attack in the book on his own profession.
The comparison he draws is the one that stings. The prophets of the northern kingdom prophesied by Baal, and that is called folly. What is happening in Jerusalem is called a horrible thing, and it is worse, because these men use the right name. A false god at least announces itself. A false word in the true name cannot be detected by its label, and it is found, the text says, in God's own house.
What they say is quoted, and it is aimed with precision at people who need to hear something else: to those who despise God, You will have peace; to everyone walking in the stubbornness of his own heart, No evil will come on you. Two audiences, both told the one thing that would let them continue. And the operational charge is the one worth carrying away, because it does not require access to anyone's motives — they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. A message is being judged by what it made possible.
The test is then made explicit, and it is a test of results rather than of credentials. Who has stood in the council of Yahweh? If they had stood in my council, then they would have caused my people to hear my words, and would have turned them from their evil way. Nobody can verify another man's private experience, and this verse does not ask anyone to try. It says that a real word does a specific work. It turns people. Where the turning is absent, the standing in the council was absent too. That is a usable test, and it is the one the book applies to itself.
The chapter closes the escape route these men were relying on. Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can't see him? Don't I fill heaven and earth? Local gods have jurisdictions and blind spots. A prophet inventing messages behaves as though this one does too. The answer is not a threat but a description of scale, and it removes the possibility that anything said in Yahweh's name was said out of earshot.
settled What this mark means