33 When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you, saying, What is the burden of Yahweh? Then you shall tell them, What burden! I will cast you off, says Yahweh. 34 As for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, who shall say, The burden of Yahweh, I will even punish that man and his house. 35 You shall say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, What has Yahweh answered? and, What has Yahweh spoken? 36 You shall mention the burden of Yahweh no more: for every man’s own word shall be his burden; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of Yahweh of Armies our God. 37 You shall say to the prophet, What has Yahweh answered you? and, What has Yahweh spoken? 38 But if you say, The burden of Yahweh; therefore thus says Yahweh: Because you say this word, The burden of Yahweh, and I have sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of Yahweh; 39 therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off, and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence: 40 and I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 23:33-40
Commentary on Jeremiah 23:33-40
(Read Jeremiah 23:33-40)
Those are miserable indeed who are forsaken and forgotten of God; and men's jesting at God's judgments will not baffle them. God had taken Israel to be a people near to him, but they shall now be cast out of his presence. It is a mark of great and daring impiety for men to jest with the words of God. Every idle and profane word will add to the sinner's burden in the day of judgment, when everlasting shame will be his portion.