Jeremiah 8:13–22

¹³“I wanted to gather my people, as a farmer gathers a harvest; but they are like a vine with no grapes, like a fig tree with no figs; even the leaves have withered. Therefore, I have allowed outsiders to take over the land.”^g

¹⁴“Why are we sitting still?” God’s people ask. “Come on, we will run to the fortified cities, and die there. The Lord our God has condemned us to die; he has given us poison to drink, because we have sinned against him. ¹⁵We hoped for peace and a time of healing, but it was no use; terror came instead. ¹⁶Our enemies are already in the city of Dan; we hear the snorting of their horses. The whole land trembles when their horses neigh. Our enemies have come to destroy our land and everything in it, our city and all its people.”

¹⁷“Watch out!” the Lord says, “I am sending snakes among you, poisonous snakes that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you.”

Jeremiah’s Sorrow for His People

¹⁸My sorrow cannot be healed;^h

I am sick at heart.

¹⁹Listen! Throughout the land

I hear my people crying out,

“Is the Lord no longer in Zion?

Is Zion’s king no longer there?”

The Lord, their king, replies,

“Why have you made me angry by worshipping your idols

and by bowing down to your useless foreign gods?”

²⁰The people cry out,

“The summer is gone, the harvest is over,

but we have not been saved.”

²¹My heart has been crushed

because my people are crushed;

I mourn; I am completely dismayed.

²²Is there no medicine in Gilead?ⁱ

Are there no doctors there?

Why, then, have my people not been healed?