Jeremiah 8:18–9:2

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.n

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?

9 a ⌊Oh that my head were waters⌋,b

and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night,

for the slain of the daughter of my people.

2 ⌊Oh that I had⌋c 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.