Jeremiah 26:4-6, 7-9, 17-18

“Say to them, ‘This is GOD’s Message: If you refuse to listen to me and live by my teaching that I’ve revealed so plainly to you, and if you continue to refuse to listen to my servants the prophets that I tirelessly keep on sending to you—but you’ve never listened! Why would you start now?—then I’ll make this Temple a pile of ruins like Shiloh, and I’ll make this city nothing but a bad joke worldwide.’”

Everybody there—priests, prophets, and people—heard Jeremiah preaching this Message in the Temple of GOD. When Jeremiah had finished his sermon, saying everything God had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and people all grabbed him, yelling, “Death! You’re going to die for this! How dare you preach—and using GOD’s name!—saying that this Temple will become a heap of rubble like Shiloh and this city be wiped out without a soul left in it!” All the people mobbed Jeremiah right in the Temple itself. * * *

Then some of the respected leaders stood up and addressed the crowd: “In the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, Micah of Moresheth preached to the people of Judah this sermon: This is GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies’ Message for you: “‘Because of people like you, Zion will be turned back into farmland, Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble, and instead of the Temple on the mountain, a few scraggly scrub pines.’