Jeremiah 5:13 describes false prophets who spoke comforting words that had no real message from God behind them. The verse says their talk would blow away like wind, and that the judgment they denied would come upon the people who listened to them. The prophet Jeremiah records this as the Lord’s word, spoken during a time when Judah was rejecting God’s warnings and assuring itself that nothing bad would happen.
The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”
Jeremiah 5:13 (WEB)
What Jeremiah 5:13 Means
The opening phrase, “The prophets will become wind,” is a picture of something with no weight and no staying power. Wind moves things for a moment and then is gone. The prophets in view were speaking, but their speech accomplished nothing lasting because it did not come from God. The phrase “the word is not in them” makes the point plain: they were talking without having received a true message from the Lord.
The last sentence, “Thus it will be done to them,” is a statement of consequence. The very thing these prophets denied, that calamity would come, would fall on them and on the people who trusted their words. The verse does not promise that God will bless anyone who speaks in his name, and it does not offer a general rule that every speaker will meet the same end. It is a warning aimed at a specific group in a specific crisis.
The Context of Jeremiah 5:13
The book of Jeremiah is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who ministered in Jerusalem in the years before Babylon destroyed the city in 586 BC. His audience was the people of Judah, along with the leaders and priests who held influence over them. Jeremiah 5 is a sharp indictment of a nation that had grown comfortable in its sin and had stopped taking the Lord’s warnings seriously.
Just before verse 13, the Lord says the people have “denied the LORD” and claimed that “Evil will won’t come on us.” Verse 14 then turns directly to God’s response: because they speak this word, his words will become fire in the prophet’s mouth, and the people will be consumed. Read in this setting, verse 13 is the people’s own slogan, a comforting falsehood that the prophets were repeating. The verse exposes the link between the prophets’ empty words and the people’s false confidence.
Key Phrases in Jeremiah 5:13
Deuteronomy 18:22
When a prophet speaks in the LORD’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.
(WEB)
This verse gives Israel a practical test for a prophet’s claim to speak for the Lord. Read alongside Jeremiah 5:13, it shows that God’s concern with false prophecy goes back to the earliest days of the nation, and that a word spoken in his name must come true because it is truly his.
Jeremiah 23:21
I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied.
(WEB)
Jeremiah later returns to the same problem, saying that prophets ran without being sent by God yet spoke as though they were. This passage deepens the picture in 5:13 by showing that the issue is not merely poor content but the claim to a commission God never gave.
A Short Prayer From Jeremiah 5:13
Lord, you are the one who speaks truth that lasts. Keep me from being carried away by comforting words that have no substance and no source in you. Give me a heart that wants your word more than the reassurance of people who tell me what I want to hear. Help me to test what I hear against what you have said, and to respond with humility when your truth calls me to change.
Where I have settled into false confidence, open my eyes to see it. Make me honest before you and steady in your word. Amen.
