"Where are the gods that you made for yourselves? When you are in trouble, let them save you---if they can! Judah, you have as many gods as you have cities.

The LORD will rescue his people when he sees that their strength is gone. He will have mercy on those who serve him, when he sees how helpless they are.

Then the LORD will ask his people, 'Where are those mighty gods you trusted?

"Why should I help you?" Elisha said to the king of Israel. "Go and consult those prophets that your father and mother consulted." "No!" Joram replied. "It is the LORD who has put us three kings at the mercy of the king of Moab."

They act as if my people's wounds were only scratches. 'All is well,' they say, when all is not well.

They act as if my people's wounds were only scratches. 'All is well,' they say, when all is not well.

Then I said, "Sovereign LORD, you know that the prophets are telling the people that there will be no war or starvation, because you have promised, they say, that there will be only peace in our land."

I, the LORD, tell you what I am going to do to those prophets whom I did not send but who speak in my name and say war and starvation will not strike this land---I will kill them in war and by starvation.

To the people who refuse to listen to what I have said, they keep saying that all will go well with them. And they tell everyone who is stubborn that disaster will never touch them."

Do not listen to the prophets who tell you not to surrender to him. They are deceiving you.

Then I told the priests and the people that the LORD had said: "Do not listen to the prophets who say that the Temple treasures will soon be brought back from Babylonia. They are lying to you.

If they are really prophets and if they have my message, let them ask me, the LORD Almighty, not to allow the treasures that remain in the Temple and in the royal palace to be taken to Babylonia."

That same year, in the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah was king, Hananiah son of Azzur, a prophet from the town of Gibeon, spoke to me in the Temple. In the presence of the priests and of the people he told me

Within two years I will bring back to this place all the Temple treasures that King Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylonia.

Then in the presence of the priests and of all the people who were standing in the Temple, I said to Hananiah,

Then Hananiah took the yoke off my neck, broke it in pieces,

Some time after this the LORD told me

The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that he will put an iron yoke on all these nations and that they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. The LORD has said that he will make even the wild animals serve Nebuchadnezzar."

And so the LORD himself says that he is going to get rid of you. Before this year is over you will die because you have told the people to rebel against the LORD."

to send to all the prisoners in Babylon this message about Shemaiah: "I, the LORD, will punish Shemaiah and all of his descendants. I did not send him, but he spoke to you as if he were a prophet, and he made you believe lies. He will have no descendants among you. He will not live to see the good things that I am going to do for my people, because he told them to rebel against me. I, the LORD, have spoken."

Your prophets had nothing to tell you but lies; Their preaching deceived you by never exposing your sin. They made you think you did not need to repent.

"The prophets mislead my people by saying that all is well. All is certainly not well! My people have put up a wall of loose stones, and then the prophets have come and covered it with whitewash.

The wall will collapse, and everyone will ask you what good the whitewash did."

I intend to break down the wall they whitewashed, to shatter it, and to leave the foundation stones bare. It will collapse and kill you all. Then everyone will know that I am the LORD.

those prophets who assured Jerusalem that all was well, when all was not well!" The Sovereign LORD has spoken.