Jeremiah 8:18–9:2

Jeremiah’s Grief over His People’s Punishment

¹⁸Sorrow has overwhelmed me. 

I am sick at heart! 

¹⁹The cry from my dear people comes from a distant land: 

“Isn’t the Lord in Zion? 

Isn’t Zion’s king still there?” 

They make me furious with their idols, with their foreign gods. 

²⁰The harvest is past, 

the summer has ended, 

and we haven’t been saved. 

²¹I am crushed because my dear people have been crushed. 

I mourn; terror grips me. 

²²Isn’t there medicine in Gilead? 

Aren’t there doctors there? 

Then why hasn’t the health of my dear people been restored? 

9TH CHAPTER^a

¹“I wish that my head were ⸤filled with⸥ water 

and my eyes were a fountain of tears 

so that I could cry day and night 

for my dear people who have been killed. 

²I wish I had a place to stay in the desert. 

I would abandon my people and go away from them. 

They are all adulterers, 

a mob of traitors.