Jeremiah 8:18-9:6

English Standard Version

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

¹⁸My joy is gone; grief is upon me;^[a]
    ^(A)my heart is sick within me.
¹⁹Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
    from ^(B)the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    ^(C)Is her King not in her?”
^(D)“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 ^(E)the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
    ^(F)I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no ^(G)balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?
9 ^[b] ^(H)Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of ^(I)the daughter of my people!
²^[c] 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 ^(J)adulterers,
    a company of ^(K)treacherous men.
³^(L)They bend their tongue like a bow;
    falsehood and not truth has grown strong^[d] in the land;
for they proceed from evil to evil,
    ^(M)and they do not know me, declares the Lord.

⁴^(N)Let everyone beware of his neighbor,
    and put no trust in any brother,
for every ^(O)brother is a deceiver,
    and every neighbor ^(P)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,
    ^(Q)they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.