Jeremiah 8:18-9:2

Common English Bible

¹⁸No healing,
    only grief;
        my heart is broken.^[a]
¹⁹Listen to the weeping of my people
        all across the land:
    “Isn’t the Lord in Zion?
        Is her king no longer there?”
Why then did they anger me with their images,
    with pointless foreign gods?
²⁰“The harvest is past,
    the summer has ended,
        yet we aren’t saved.”
²¹Because my people are crushed,
    I am crushed;
    darkness and despair overwhelm me.

What to do with God’s people

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then have my people
not been restored to health?

9 ^[b] If only my head were a spring of water,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night
    for the wounds of my people.
²^[c] If only I could flee for shelter in the desert,
    to leave my people
        and forget them—
    for they are all adulterers,
        a bunch of crooks.