I shall be found of you. 14

By omitting all of verses 12-14 that is not given by the Greek we get
these eight lines in approximately Jeremiah's favourite Qinah-measure. The
Greek also lacks verses 16-20, which irrelevantly digress from the exiles
to the guilt and doom of the Jews in Jerusalem, and which it is difficult
to think that Jeremiah would have put into a letter to be carried by two
of these same Jews.(503) Verse 15 goes with 21-23,(504) a separate message
to the exiles which we shall treat in the following section.

2. Prophets and Prophets. (XXIII. 9-32, XXVII-XXIX, etc.)

Jeremiah's Letter to the Exiles had its consequences. _First_, there was
their claim to have prophets of the Lord among themselves, which in our
text immediately follows the Letter as if part of it, XXIX. 15, 21-23, but
which is probably of a somewhat later date.

XXIX. 15. Because ye have said, The Lord hath raised us up
prophets in Babylon, [21] thus saith the Lord concerning Ahab son
of Kolaiah and concerning Sedekiah son of Maaseiah,(505) Behold I
am to give them into the hand of the king of Babylon and to your
eyes shall he slay them. 22. And of them shall a curse be taken up
by all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon saying, "The Lord
set thee like Sedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon
roasted(506) in the fire!" 23. Because they have wrought folly in
Israel and committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and in
My Name have spoken words which I commanded them not. I am He who
knoweth and am witness--Rede of the Lord.

And, _second_, another of the "prophets" among the exiles sent to
Jerusalem a protest against Jeremiah's Letter, XXIX. 24-29.

This passage, especially in its concise Greek form, which as usual is
devoid of the repetitions of titles and other redundant phrases in the
Hebrew text, bears the stamp of genuineness.

XXIX. 24. And unto Shemaiah the Nehemalite thou shalt say:(507)
25_b_. Because thou hast sent in thine own name a letter to
Sephaniah, son of Maaseiah, the priest,(508) saying, [26] The Lord
hath appointed thee priest, instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be
overseer in the House of the Lord for every man that is raving and
takes on himself to be a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in
the stocks and in the collar. 27. Now therefore why hast thou not
curbed Jeremiah of Anathoth, who takes on hi