14. I will be found by you,” says the lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”
15. You claim that the lord has raised up prophets for you in Babylon.
16. But this is what the lord says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all those still living here in Jerusalem—your relatives who were not exiled to Babylon.
17. This is what the lord of Heaven’s Armies says: “I will send war, famine, and disease upon them and make them like bad figs, too rotten to eat.
18. Yes, I will pursue them with war, famine, and disease, and I will scatter them around the world. In every nation where I send them, I will make them an object of damnation, horror, contempt, and mockery.
19. For they refuse to listen to me, though I have spoken to them repeatedly through the prophets I sent. And you who are in exile have not listened either,” says the lord.
20. Therefore, listen to this message from the lord, all you captives there in Babylon.
21. This is what the lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says about your prophets—Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah—who are telling you lies in my name: “I will turn them over to Nebuchadnezzar for execution before your eyes.
22. Their terrible fate will become proverbial, so that the Judean exiles will curse someone by saying, ‘May the lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned alive!’
23. For these men have done terrible things among my people. They have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and have lied in my name, saying things I did not command. I am a witness to this. I, the lord, have spoken.”
24. The lord sent this message to Shemaiah the Nehelamite in Babylon:
25. “This is what the lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: You wrote a letter on your own authority to Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, the priest, and you sent copies to the other priests and people in Jerusalem. You wrote to Zephaniah,
26. “The lord has appointed you to replace Jehoiada as the priest in charge of the house of the lord. You are responsible to put into stocks and neck irons any crazy man who claims to be a prophet.
27. So why have you done nothing to stop Jeremiah from Anathoth, who pretends to be a prophet among you?