Jeremiah 8:18-10:25

New International Version - UK

¹⁸ You who are my Comforter^[a] in sorrow,
    my heart is faint within me.
¹⁹ Listen to the cry of my people
    from a land far away:
‘Is the Lord not in Zion?
    Is her King no longer there?’

‘Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
    with their worthless foreign idols?’

²⁰ ‘The harvest is past,
    the summer has ended,
    and we are not saved.’

²¹ Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
    I mourn, and horror grips me.
²² Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
    for the wound of my people?
9 ^[b]Oh, that my head were a spring of water
    and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
    for the slain of my people.
² Oh, that I had in the desert
    a lodging place for travellers,
so that I might leave my people
    and go away from them;
for they are all adulterers,
    a crowd of unfaithful people.

³ ‘They make ready their tongue
    like a bow, to shoot lies;
it is not by truth
    that they triumph^[c] in the land.
They go from one sin to another;
    they do not acknowledge me,’
declares the Lord.
⁴ ‘Beware of your friends;
    do not trust anyone in your clan.
For every one of them is a deceiver,^[d]
    and every friend a slanderer.
⁵ Friend deceives friend,
    and no one speaks the truth.
They have taught their tongues to lie;
    they weary themselves with sinning.
⁶ You^[e] live in the midst of deception;
    in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,’
declares the Lord.

‘See, I will refine and test them,
    for what else can I do
    because of the sin of my people?
⁸ Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
    it speaks deceitfully.
With their mouths they all speak cordially to their neighbours,
    but in their hearts they set traps for them.
⁹ Should I not punish them for this?’
    declares the Lord.
‘Should I not avenge myself
    on such a nation as this?’

¹⁰ I will weep and wail for the mountains
    and take up a lament concerning the wilderness grasslands.
They are desolate and untravelled,
    and the lowing of cattle is not heard.
The birds have all fled
    and the animals are gone.

¹¹ ‘I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
    a haunt of jackals;
and I will lay waste the towns of Judah
    so that no one can live there.’

‘Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come;
    send for the most skilful of them.
¹⁸ Let them come quickly
    and wail over us
till our eyes overflow with tears
    and water streams from our eyelids.
¹⁹ The sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
    “How ruined we are!
    How great is our shame!
We must leave our land
    because our houses are in ruins.”’

²⁰ Now, you women, hear the word of the Lord;
    open your ears to the words of his mouth.
Teach your daughters how to wail;
    teach one another a lament.
²¹ Death has climbed in through our windows
    and has entered our fortresses;
it has removed the children from the streets
    and the young men from the public squares.

‘“Dead bodies will lie
    like dung on the open field,
like cut corn behind the reaper,
    with no one to gather them.”’

‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
    or the strong boast of their strength
    or the rich boast of their riches,
²⁴ but let the one who boasts boast about this:
    that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
    justice and righteousness on earth,
    for in these I delight,’
declares the Lord.

‘Do not learn the ways of the nations
    or be terrified by signs in the heavens,
    though the nations are terrified by them.
³ For the practices of the peoples are worthless;
    they cut a tree out of the forest,
    and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
⁴ They adorn it with silver and gold;
    they fasten it with hammer and nails
    so that it will not totter.
⁵ Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
    their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
    because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them;
    they can do no harm
    nor can they do any good.’

⁶ No one is like you, Lord;
    you are great,
    and your name is mighty in power.
⁷ Who should not fear you,
    King of the nations?
    This is your due.
Among all the wise leaders of the nations
    and in all their kingdoms,
    there is no one like you.

⁸ They are all senseless and foolish;
    they are taught by worthless wooden idols.
⁹ Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish
    and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith have made
    is then dressed in blue and purple –
    all made by skilled workers.
¹⁰ But the Lord is the true God;
    he is the living God, the eternal King.
When he is angry, the earth trembles;
    the nations cannot endure his wrath.

¹² But God made the earth by his power;
    he founded the world by his wisdom
    and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
¹³ When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
    he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
    and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁴ Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
    every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The images he makes are a fraud;
    they have no breath in them.
¹⁵ They are worthless, the objects of mockery;
    when their judgment comes, they will perish.
¹⁶ He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,
    for he is the Maker of all things,
including Israel, the people of his inheritance –
    the Lord Almighty is his name.

¹⁹ Woe to me because of my injury!
    My wound is incurable!
Yet I said to myself,
    ‘This is my sickness, and I must endure it.’
²⁰ My tent is destroyed;
    all its ropes are snapped.
My children are gone from me and are no more;
    no one is left now to pitch my tent
    or to set up my shelter.
²¹ The shepherds are senseless
    and do not enquire of the Lord;
so they do not prosper
    and all their flock is scattered.
²² Listen! The report is coming –
    a great commotion from the land of the north!
It will make the towns of Judah desolate,
    a haunt of jackals.