Day 235: Lying Prophets (2026)

**Fr. Mike Schmitz** (0:04)
Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to The Bible in a Year Podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year Podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation. Discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today, it is day 235 We're reading Jeremiah chapter 14 and 15, as well as Ezekiel 43 and 44 and Proverbs chapter 15 verses 13 through 16 As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Mission. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com/bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast and receive daily episodes. As I said, this day is day 235 We're reading Jeremiah 14 and 15, Ezekiel 43 and 44 and Proverbs 15 verses 13 through 16
The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 14, The Great Drought. The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. Judah mourns, and her gates languish. Her people lament on the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem goes up. Her nobles send their servants for water. They come to the cisterns. They find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are ashamed and confounded and cover their heads because of the ground which is dismayed, since there is no rain on the land. The farmers are ashamed. They cover their heads. Even the deer in the field forsakes her newborn fawn because there is no grass. The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail because there is no herbage. Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for your name's sake. For our backslidings are many. We have sinned against you. O you, hope of Israel, its savior and time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a wayfarer who turns aside to linger for a night? Why should you be like a man confused, or like a mighty man who cannot save? Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name. Leave us not. Thus says the Lord concerning his people. They have loved to wander thus. They have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. The Lord said to me, Do not pray for the welfare of this people. Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and cereal offering, I will not accept them, but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.
Denunciation of lying prophets and a prayer for mercy. Then I said, Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place. And the Lord said to me, The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, although I did not send them, and who say sword and famine shall not come on this land. By sword and famine, those prophets shall be consumed, and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them, them, their wives, their sons and their daughters. For I will pour out their wickedness upon them. You shall say to them this word, let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people is struck down with a great wound, with a very grievous blow.
If I go out into the field, behold, those slain by the sword, and if I enter the city, behold, the diseases of famine, for both prophet and priest ply their trade through the land and have no knowledge.
Have you utterly rejected Judah? Does your soul loathe Zion? Why have you struck us down so that there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came, for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you. Do not spurn us for your name's sake. Do not dishonor your glorious throne. Remember and do not break your covenant with us. Are there any among the gods of the nations that can bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are you not he, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for you do all these things.