Jeremiah 8:18–9:2

Jeremiah’s Sadness

¹⁸God, you are my comfort when I am very sad

and when I am afraid.

¹⁹Listen to the sound of my people.

They cry from a faraway land:

“Isn’t the Lord still in Jerusalem?

Isn’t Jerusalem’s king still there?”

But God says, “Why did the people make me angry by worshiping idols,

useless foreign idols?”

²⁰And the people say, “Harvest time is over;

summer has ended,

and we have not been saved.”

²¹Because my people are crushed, I am crushed.

I cry loudly and am afraid for them.

²²Isn’t there balm in the land of Gilead?

Isn’t there a doctor there?

So why aren’t the hurts of my people healed?

9I wish my head were like a spring of water

and my eyes like a fountain of tears!

Then I could cry day and night

for my people who have been killed.

²I wish I had a place in the desert—

a house where travelers spend the night—

so I could leave my people.

I could go away from them,

because they are all unfaithful to God;

they are all turning against him.