Jeremiah 8:4-9:6

English Standard Version

Sin and Treachery

⁴“You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
^(A)When men fall, do they not rise again?
    If one turns away, does he not return?
⁵Why then has this people ^(B)turned away
    in perpetual ^(C)backsliding?
^(D)They hold fast to deceit;
    they refuse to return.
⁶^(E)I have paid attention and listened,
    but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
    saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
    ^(F)like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
⁷Even the stork in the heavens
    knows her times,
and ^(G)the turtledove, ^(H)swallow, and crane^[a]
    keep the time of their coming,
^(I)but my people know not
    the rules^[b] of the Lord.

⁸^(J)“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
⁹^(K)The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed ^(L)and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
    so what wisdom is in them?
¹⁰^(M)Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
    everyone ^(N)is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
¹¹They have healed ^(O)the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.
¹²Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, ^(P)they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
^(Q)Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
    when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord.
¹³When I would gather them, declares the Lord,
    there are ^(R)no grapes on the vine,
    ^(S)nor figs on the fig tree;
^(T)even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”^[c]

¹⁴Why do we sit still?
^(U)Gather together; ^(V)let us go into the fortified cities
    and perish there,
for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
    and has ^(W)given us ^(X)poisoned water to drink,
    because we have sinned against the Lord.
¹⁵^(Y)We looked for peace, but no good came;
    for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

¹⁶^(Z)“The snorting of their horses is heard ^(AA)from Dan;
    at the sound of the neighing ^(AB)of their stallions
    ^(AC)the whole land quakes.
They come ^(AD)and devour the land and all that fills it,
    the city and those who dwell in it.
¹⁷For behold, I am sending among you ^(AE)serpents,
    adders ^(AF)that cannot be charmed,
    ^(AG)and they shall bite you,”
declares the Lord.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

¹⁸My joy is gone; grief is upon me;^[d]
    ^(AH)my heart is sick within me.
¹⁹Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
    from ^(AI)the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    ^(AJ)Is her King not in her?”
^(AK)“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
    and with their foreign idols?”
²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved.”
²¹For the wound of ^(AL)the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
    ^(AM)I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no ^(AN)balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?
9 ^[e] ^(AO)Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of ^(AP)the daughter of my people!
²^[f] Oh that I had in the desert
    a travelers' lodging place,
that I might leave my people
    and go away from them!
For they are all ^(AQ)adulterers,
    a company of ^(AR)treacherous men.
³^(AS)They bend their tongue like a bow;
    falsehood and not truth has grown strong^[g] in the land;
for they proceed from evil to evil,
    ^(AT)and they do not know me, declares the Lord.

⁴^(AU)Let everyone beware of his neighbor,
    and put no trust in any brother,
for every ^(AV)brother is a deceiver,
    and every neighbor ^(AW)goes about as a slanderer.
⁵Everyone deceives his neighbor,
    and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongue to speak lies;
    they weary themselves committing iniquity.
⁶Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit,
    ^(AX)they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.