Jeremiah 8–9

8“At that time the tombs will be opened,” announces the Lord. “The bones of the kings and officials of Judah will be brought out. The bones of the priests and prophets will be removed. So will the bones of the people of Jerusalem. ²They will lie outside under the sun, moon and all of the stars.

“All of those people had loved and served those things. They had followed them and worshiped them. They had asked them for advice. So the bones of those people will not be gathered up or buried again. Instead, they will be like trash lying there on the ground.

³“Everyone who is left alive in this evil nation will want to die rather than live. That is what they will long for in the lands where I force them to go,” announces the Lord who rules over all.

The Lord Punishes His Sinful People

⁴“Jeremiah, tell them, ‘The Lord says,

“ ‘ “When people fall down, don’t they get up again?

When someone turns away, doesn’t he come back?

⁵Then why have the people of Jerusalem turned away from me?

Why do they always turn away?

They keep on telling lies.

They refuse to come back to me.

⁶I have listened carefully.

But they do not say what is right.

They refuse to turn away from their sins.

No one says, ‘What have I done?’

All of them go their own way.

They are like horses charging into battle.

⁷Storks know when to fly south.

So do doves, swifts and thrushes.

But my people do not know

what I require them to do.

⁸“ ‘ “How can you people say, ‘We are wise.

We have the law of the Lord’?

Actually, the teachers of the law have told lies about it.

Their pens have not written what is true.

⁹Those who think they are wise will be put to shame.

They will become terrified. They will be trapped.

They have not accepted my message.

So what kind of wisdom do they have?

¹⁰I will give their wives to other men.

I will give their fields to new owners.

Everyone wants to get richer and richer,

from the least important of them to the most important.

Prophets and priests alike

try to fool everyone they can.

¹¹They bandage the wounds of my people

as if they were not very deep.

‘Peace, peace,’ they say.

But there isn’t any peace.

¹²Are they ashamed of their hateful actions?

No. They do not feel any shame at all.

They do not even know how to blush.

So they will fall like others who have already fallen.

They will be brought down when I punish them,”

says the Lord.

¹³“ ‘ “I will take away their harvest,”

announces the Lord.

“There will not be any grapes on the vines.

The trees will not bear any figs.

The leaves on the trees will dry up.

What I have given them

will be taken away from them.” ’ ”

¹⁴Why are we sitting here?

Let’s gather together!

Let’s run to the cities that have high walls around them!

Let’s die there!

The Lord our God has sentenced us to death.

He has given us poisoned water to drink.

That’s because we’ve sinned against him.

¹⁵We hoped peace would come.

But nothing good has happened to us.

We hoped we would finally be healed.

But all we got was terror.

¹⁶When our enemy’s horses snort,

the noise is heard all the way from Dan.

When their stallions neigh,

the whole land trembles with fear.

They have come to destroy

the land and everything in it.

The city and everyone who lives there will be destroyed.

¹⁷“People of Judah, I will send poisonous snakes among you.

No one will be able to charm them.

And they will bite you,”

announces the Lord.

¹⁸Lord, my heart is weak inside me.

You comfort me when I’m sad.

¹⁹Listen to the cries of my people

from a land far away.

They cry out, “Isn’t the Lord in Zion?

Isn’t its King there anymore?”

The Lord says, “Why have they made me so angry

by worshiping their wooden gods?

Why have they made me angry

with their worthless statues

of gods from other lands?”

²⁰The people say, “The harvest is over.

The summer has ended.

And we still haven’t been saved.”

²¹My people are crushed, so I am crushed.

I sob, and I am filled with horror.

²²Isn’t there any healing lotion in Gilead?

Isn’t there a doctor there?

Then why doesn’t someone heal

the wounds of my people?

9I wish my head were a spring of water!

I wish my eyes were a fountain of tears!

I would sob day and night

over my people who have been killed.

²I wish I had somewhere to go in the desert

where a traveler could stay!

Then I could leave my people.

I could get away from them.

All of them commit adultery by worshiping other gods.

They aren’t faithful to the Lord.

³“They get ready to use

their tongues like bows,”

announces the Lord.

“Their mouths shoot out lies like arrows.

They tell lies to gain power in the land.

They go from one sin to another.

They do not pay any attention to me.

⁴Be on guard against your friends.

Do not trust the members of your own family.

Every one of them cheats.

Every friend tells lies.

⁵One friend cheats another.

No one tells the truth.

They have taught their tongues how to lie.

They wear themselves out sinning.

⁶Jeremiah, you live among people who tell lies.

When they lie, they refuse to pay any attention to me,”

announces the Lord.

⁷So the Lord who rules over all says,

“I will put them through the fire to test them.

What else can I do?

My people are so sinful!

⁸Their tongues are like deadly arrows.

They tell lies.

With their mouths all of them speak kindly to their neighbors.

But in their hearts they set traps for them.

⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for that?”

announces the Lord.

“Shouldn’t I pay back the nation

that does those things?”

¹⁰I will cry and sob over the fields in the hills.

I will sing a song of sadness about the desert grasslands.

They are dry and empty. No one travels through them.

The mooing of cattle isn’t heard there.

The birds of the air have flown away.

All of the animals are gone.

¹¹The Lord says, “I will knock all of Jerusalem’s buildings down.

I will make it a home for wild dogs.

The towns of Judah will be completely destroyed.

No one will be able to live in them.”

¹²Who is wise enough to understand those things? Who has been taught by the Lord? Who can explain them? Why has the land been destroyed so completely? Why has it become like a desert that no one can go across?

¹³The Lord answered me, “Because my people have turned away from my law. I gave it to them. But they have not kept it. They have not obeyed me. ¹⁴Instead, they have done what their stubborn hearts wanted them to do. They have worshiped the gods that are named after Baal. They have done what their people have taught them to do down through the years.”

¹⁵So now the Lord who rules over all speaks. He is the God of Israel. He says, “I will make these people eat bitter food. I will make them drink poisoned water. ¹⁶I will scatter them among the nations. They and their people before them have not had anything to do with those nations before. I will chase these people with swords. I will hunt them down until I have destroyed them.”

¹⁷The Lord rules over all. He says,

“Here is something I want you to think about.

Send for the women who sob over the dead.

Send for the most skilled among them.”

¹⁸Let them come quickly

and sob over us.

Let them cry until tears flow from our eyes.

Let them sob until water pours out of our eyes.

¹⁹People are heard sobbing in Zion.

They are saying, “We are destroyed!

We are filled with shame!

We must leave our land.

Our houses have been torn down.”

²⁰Women, hear the Lord’s message.

Listen to what he’s saying.

Teach your daughters how to sob over the dead.

Teach one another a song of sadness.

²¹Death has climbed in through our windows.

It has entered our forts.

It has removed the children from the streets.

It has taken the young people out of the market places.

²²Say, “The Lord announces,

“ ‘The dead bodies of men will be like trash

lying in the open fields.

They will lie there like grain

that is cut down at harvest time.

No one will gather them up.’ ”

²³The Lord says,

“Do not let a wise man brag about how wise he is.

Do not let a strong man boast about how strong he is.

Do not let a rich person brag about how rich he is.

²⁴But here is what the one who brags should boast about.

He should brag that he has understanding and knows me.

I want him to know that I am the Lord.

No matter what I do on earth, I am always kind, fair and right.

And I take delight in that,”

announces the Lord.

²⁵“The days are coming when I will judge people,” announces the Lord. “I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their bodies. ²⁶That includes the people of Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon and Moab. It also includes all those who live in the desert in places far away. None of the people in those nations is really circumcised. And not even the people of Israel are circumcised in their hearts.”