22. When the people who were taken away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia want to bring a curse on someone, they will say, ‘May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylonia roasted alive!’
23. This will be their fate because they are guilty of terrible sins — they have committed adultery and have told lies in the Lord's name. This was against the Lord's will; he knows what they have done, and he is a witness against them. The Lord has spoken.”
24-25. The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, gave me a message for Shemaiah of Nehelam, who had sent a letter in his own name to all the people of Jerusalem and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah and to all the other priests. In this letter, Shemaiah wrote to Zephaniah:
26. “The Lord made you a priest in place of Jehoiada, and you are now the chief officer in the Temple. It is your duty to see that every madman who pretends to be a prophet is placed in chains with an iron collar round his neck.
27. Why haven't you done this to Jeremiah of Anathoth, who has been speaking as a prophet to the people?
28. He must be stopped because he told the people in Babylonia that they would be prisoners there a long time and should build houses, settle down, plant gardens, and eat what they grow.”
29. Zephaniah read the letter to me,
30. and then the Lord told me
31-32. to send to all the prisoners in Babylon this message about Shemaiah: “I, the Lord, will punish Shemaiah and all 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.”