King Zedekiah began his reign as his capital city was robbed of its wealth and its best people. He ended his reign ten years later when his city and land were destroyed and he himself was sent, blind and in chains, as prisoner to Babylonia. He was a weak king, unable to lead his people effectively in this time of great crisis. During his reign, Jeremiah continued to speak and act in the name of God, and had several en-counters with the king.

A future righteous king;false prophets and priests (Jeremiah 23: 1-40) 23: 1-6. Jeremiah has seen the failure or the descendants of David to be the leaders their people needed. Against this background he prophesied the coming rule of a righteous king. This messianic prophecy follows the traditions which were emphasized in the earlier prophecies of Isaiah.

23: 7-8 looks back to the first Exodus and forward to a new Exodus from. the land of exile. This would be significant against the action of the Babylonians in 597 B.C. when they took away the ten thousand exiles from Jerusalem.

23: 9-14. In this passage Jeremiah expresses his horror of the cult prophets whose lives are wicked and yet who still profess to be serving Yahweh. He also refers to priests whom he describes as godless. In both Samaria and Jerusalem, the men who should have led the people to a knowledge of God had led them into evil.

23: 15-32. In this passage the criteria for judging whether a prophet was a true spokesman of God, or a false prophet, are presented:

(i) a true prophet was one who had a personal relationship with God (ii) he spoke the truth however different this was from what his hearers expected

(iii) he knew that he was sent by God to speak for him

(iv) his messages were a challenge to his hearers to give up evil" and live according to God's will

(v) his own life and actions must be a witness to the moral claims of God.

In the condemnation ofthe false prophets in this passage, the following accusations are made against them:

(i) they follow their own imagination and fill the people with false

hopes

(ii) they have no personal knowledge of God

(iii) they have not been sent by God to speak for him

(iv) what they say is not the truth but lies, and they claim, falsely, that God has given them revelations in dreams

(v) 23: 14 accuses them of behaviour which is in opposition to the moral claims of God.

There are other passages in the book of Jeremiah where false prophets are also accused of accepting payment for oracles so that oracles can be bought, and of soothing the people who come to them by speaking words of peace and comfort instead of challenging them about the evil in their lives (6: 13-14,14: 13).

23: 33-40 is concerned with the double meaning of a Hebrew word, massa, which means a load or heavy burden, and also signifies the judgement of God. Because the cult prophets and the priests have spoken falsely in the name of the Lord, they are compared to a heavy load which God is about to throwaway in order to free himself from them. They will be thrown into exile.