1. Woe be unto the pastors that waste and scatter the sheep of my pasture! said the Lord.
2. Therefore thus hath the Lord God of Israel said unto the pastors that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them; behold, I visit upon you the evil of your doings, said the Lord.
3. And I will gather the remnant of my sheep out of all the lands where I have driven them and will cause them to return to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
4. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed neither shall they be lacking, said the Lord.
5. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
6. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this shall be his name by which they shall call him, THE Lord OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
7. Therefore, behold, the days come, said the Lord, and they shall no longer say, The Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
8. but, The Lord lives, who caused the seed of the house of Israel to come up and out of the land of the north wind, and from all the lands where I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land.
9. My heart is broken within me because of the prophets, all my bones shake; I was like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, before the Lord, and before the words of his holiness.
10. For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the oath the land is deserted; the booths of the wilderness are dried up, and their course was evil, and their force was not right.
11. For both prophet and priest are feigned; even in my house I have found their wickedness, said the Lord.
12. Therefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be driven on and fall therein; for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the Lord.
13. And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal and caused my people Israel to err.
14. I have also seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem: they committed adultery and walked by lies; they strengthened also the hands of evildoers, that no none is converted from his malice; they are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
15. Therefore, thus hath the Lord of the hosts said against those prophets: Behold, I will cause them to eat wormwood and make them drink the waters of gall, for from the prophets of Jerusalem is hypocrisy gone forth upon all the land.