Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 23:15

"Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is ungodliness gone forth into all the land." — Jeremiah 23:15 (ASV)

Wormwood ... water of gall. —See Notes on Jeremiah 8:14; Jeremiah 9:15.

Profaneness. —The root-meaning of the Hebrew word is that of “veiling,” hence that of simulated holiness, or, as in the margin, “hypocrisy”; but its associations also imparted to it the further sense of the hypocrisy that desecrates, so that “profaneness” is, on the whole, the best rendering. The corresponding concrete noun is rendered in Isaiah 9:17 by “hypocrite”; in Psalms 35:16 by “hypocritical mocker”; and above, in Jeremiah 23:11, by “profane.”