7-8. “So watch for this. The time’s coming”—God’s Decree—“when no one will say, ‘As sure as God lives, the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt,’ but, ‘As sure as God lives, the God who brought the descendants of Israel back from the north country and from the other countries where he’d driven them, so that they can live on their own good earth.’”
9. My head is reeling,my limbs are limp,I’m staggering like a drunk,seeing double from too much wine—And all because of God,because of his holy words.
10-12. Now for what God says regarding the lying prophets:“Can you believe it? A country teeming with adulterers!faithless, promiscuous idolater-adulterers!They’re a curse on the land.The land’s a wasteland.Their unfaithfulnessis turning the country into a cesspool,Prophets and priests devoted to desecration.They have nothing to do with me as their God.My very own Temple, mind you—mud-spattered with their crimes.” God’s Decree.“But they won’t get by with it.They’ll find themselves on a slippery slope,Careening into the darkness,somersaulting into the pitch-black dark.I’ll make them pay for their crimes.It will be the Year of Doom.” God’s Decree.
13-14. “Over in Samaria I saw prophetsacting like silly fools—shocking!They preached using that no-god Baal for a text,messing with the minds of my people.And the Jerusalem prophets are even worse—horrible!—sex-driven, living a lie,Subsidizing a culture of wickedness,and never giving it a second thought.They’re as bad as those wretches in old Sodom,the degenerates of old Gomorrah.”
15. So here’s the Message to the prophets from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:“I’ll cook them a supper of maggoty meatwith after-dinner drinks of strychnine.The Jerusalem prophets are behind all this.They’re the cause of the godlessness polluting this country.”
16-17. A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:“Don’t listen to the sermons of the prophets.It’s all hot air. Lies, lies, and more lies.They make it all up.Not a word they speak comes from me.They preach their ‘Everything Will Turn Out Fine’ sermonto congregations with no taste for God,Their ‘Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen to You’ sermonto people who are set in their own ways.
18-20. “Have any of these prophets bothered to meet with me, the true God?bothered to take in what I have to say?listened to and then lived out my Word?Look out! God’s hurricane will be let loose—my hurricane blast,Spinning the heads of the wicked like tops!God’s raging anger won’t let upUntil I’ve made a clean sweep,completing the job I began.When the job’s done,you’ll see that it’s been well done.
21-22. “I never sent these prophets,but they ran anyway.I never spoke to them,but they preached away.If they’d have bothered to sit down and meet with me,they’d have preached my Message to my people.They’d have gotten them back on the right track,gotten them out of their evil ruts.