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Psalm 43

1  Give judgement for me, O God,
      and defend my cause against an ungodly people; ♦︎
   deliver me from the deceitful and the wicked.
2  For you are the God of my refuge;
      why have you cast me from you, ♦︎
   and why go I so heavily, while the enemy oppresses me?
3  O send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, ♦︎
   and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling,
4  That I may go to the altar of God,
      to the God of my joy and gladness; ♦︎
   and on the lyre I will give thanks to you, O God my God.
5  Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, ♦︎
   and why are you so disquieted within me?
6  O put your trust in God; ♦︎
   for I will yet give him thanks,
      who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

False Prophets Condemned

13The word of the Lord came to me: ²Mortal, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are prophesying; say to those who prophesy out of their own imagination: ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’ ³Thus says the Lord God, Alas for the senseless prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! ⁴Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. ⁵You have not gone up into the breaches, or repaired a wall for the house of Israel, so that it might stand in battle on the day of the Lord. ⁶They have prophesied falsehood and lying divination; they say, ‘Says the Lord’, when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they wait for the fulfilment of their word! ⁷Have you not seen a false vision or uttered a lying divination, when you have said, ‘Says the Lord’, even though I did not speak?

8 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have uttered falsehood and prophesied lies, I am against you, says the Lord God. ⁹My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations; they shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord God. ¹⁰Because, in truth, because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace’, when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets^* smear whitewash on it. ¹¹Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall. There will be a deluge of rain,^* great hailstones will fall, and a stormy wind will break out. ¹²When the wall falls, will it not be said to you, ‘Where is the whitewash you smeared on it?’ ¹³Therefore thus says the Lord God: In my wrath I will make a stormy wind break out, and in my anger there shall be a deluge of rain, and hailstones in wrath to destroy it. ¹⁴I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare; when it falls, you shall perish within it; and you shall know that I am the Lord. ¹⁵Thus I will spend my wrath upon the wall, and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash; and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it— ¹⁶the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for it, when there was no peace, says the Lord God.

False Prophets and Their Punishment

2But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. ²Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers^* the way of truth will be maligned. ³And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.