To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
All speech must be judged by the law and the testimony, since words outside that standard have no dawn.
This verse names God's revealed word as the measure of truth and light.
19When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. 21They will roam the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged; and looking upward, they will curse their king and their God. 22Then they will look to the earth and see only distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish. And they will be driven into utter darkness.