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18 “My comfort is gone from me,
    sorrow is on me,
    my heart is sick.
19 Look, the sound of the cry for help of the daughter of my people
    from a distant land,
‘Is Yahweh not in Zion?
    Is her king not in her?’
Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
    with idols of a foreign land?”
20 The harvest has passed,
    the summer has come to an end,
and we have not received help.[a]

Yahweh’s Lament

21 “Because of the wound of the daughter of my people I am broken down,
    I mourn, horror has seized me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no healer there?
Why, then, has the healing of the daughter of my people not been restored?

[b] Oh that my head were waters,[c]
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night,
    for the slain of the daughter of my people.
Oh that I had[d] in the desert a place of overnight lodging for travelers,
    that I may leave my people and go from them,
for all of them are adulterers,
    a band of traitors.

Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 8:20 Or “been saved”
  2. Jeremiah 9:1 Jeremiah 9:1–26 in the English Bible is 8:23–9:25 in the Hebrew Bible
  3. Jeremiah 9:1 Literally “Who he gives my head waters”
  4. Jeremiah 9:2 Literally “Who he gives me”

Lament over Judah

18 My joy has flown away;
grief has settled on me.
My heart is sick.(A)
19 Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a faraway land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,(B)
her King not within her?”
Why have they angered me
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?(C)
20 Harvest has passed, summer has ended,
but we have not been saved.
21 I am broken by the brokenness
of my dear people.(D)
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?(E)
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?

If my head were a flowing spring,
my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night(F)
over the slain of my dear[a] people.
If only I had a traveler’s lodging place
in the wilderness,(G)
I would abandon my people
and depart from them,
for they are all adulterers,(H)
a solemn assembly of treacherous people.(I)

Footnotes

  1. 9:1 Lit slain among the daughter of my