Jeremiah 8:13–22

¹³When I would gather them, says the Lord,

there are no grapes on the vine,

nor figs on the fig tree;

even the leaves are withered,

and what I gave them has passed away from them.”

¹⁴Why do we sit still?

Gather together, let us go into the fortified cities

and perish there;

for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish,

and has given us poisoned water to drink,

because we have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came,

for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

¹⁶“The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;

at the sound of the neighing of their stallions

the whole land quakes.

They come and devour the land and all that fills it,

the city and those who dwell in it.

¹⁷For behold, I am sending among you serpents,

adders which cannot be charmed,

and they shall bite you,”

says the Lord.

¹⁸My grief is beyond healing,

my heart is sick within me.

¹⁹Hark, the cry of the daughter of my people

from the length and breadth of the land:

“Is the Lord not in Zion?

Is her King not in her?”

“Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images,

and with their foreign idols?”

²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

and we are not saved.”

²¹For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded,

I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of the daughter of my people

not been restored?