9, 10. (a) On what basis do Christendom’s clergy claim to be wise and versed in law? (b) In disproof of their claim, what foreview does Jehovah give us of the consequences of their dealings?

⁹ The clergy of Christendom claim to be wise, not basically due to having the Bible but because of having theological seminary training. They insist that they are informed on the law of the Bible’s God and know how to interpret it and apply it. But the God of the Bible knows differently. He looks ahead to the near future, when the consequences of their handling of Christendom’s affairs will actually face them. With such a foreview Jehovah says:

¹⁰ “How can you men say: ‘We are wise, and the law of Jehovah is with us’? Surely, now [at the outbreak of the final trouble], the false stylus of the secretaries has worked in sheer falsehood.

Jer. 8:8

11, 12. (a) How has the “stylus of the secretaries” of Christendom “worked in sheer falsehood”? (b) According to Jeremiah 8:9, what is the reason for the pen of Christendom’s writers to set out false things?

¹¹ In writing things contrary to what Jehovah has foretold, the “stylus of the secretaries” of modern-day Christendom will shortly prove to have been a “false” pen. It has not written the truth. Consequently, in this “time of the end,” when so much has been written in behalf of Christendom, that religious pen or “stylus” has certainly “worked in sheer falsehood.” (Dan. 12:9)