Jeremiah 8:18-9:16
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Prophet Mourns for the People
18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me;
my heart is sick.
19 Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people
from far and wide in the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?”
(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
with their foreign idols?”)(A)
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken,
I mourn, and horror has seized me.(B)
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?(C)
9 [a]O that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter of my people!(D)
2 [b]O that I had in the desert
a traveler’s lodging place,
that I might leave my people
and go away from them!
For they are all adulterers,
a band of traitors.(E)
3 They bend their tongues like bows;
they have grown strong in the land for falsehood and not for truth,
for they proceed from evil to evil,
and they do not know me, says the Lord.(F)
4 Beware of your neighbors,
and put no trust in any of your kin,
for all your kin are supplanters,
and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer.(G)
5 They all deceive their neighbors,
and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.[c](H)
6 Oppression upon oppression, deceit[d] upon deceit!
They refuse to know me, says the Lord.(I)
7 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:
I will now refine and test them,
for what else can I do with the daughter of my people?(J)
8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
it speaks deceit through the mouth.
They all speak friendly words to their neighbors
but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush.(K)
9 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord,
and shall I not bring retribution
on a nation such as this?(L)
10 Take up[e] weeping and wailing for the mountains
and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness,
because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
and the lowing of cattle is not heard;
both the birds of the air and the animals
have fled and are gone.(M)
11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
a lair of jackals,
and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation,
without inhabitant.(N)
12 Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that they may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?(O) 13 And the Lord says: Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accordance with it(P) 14 but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.(Q) 15 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am feeding this people with wormwood and giving them poisonous water to drink.(R) 16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.(S)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.