Lament (Jer. 8:18-9:6

Ben Palm September 30, 2018

Jeremiah 8:18-9:6

^{8 18}My joy is gone; grief is upon me;
    my heart is sick within me.
¹⁹Behold, 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 carved 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?
9  1 Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of the daughter of my people!
² Oh that I had in the desert
    a travelers’ lodging place,
that I might leave my people
    and go away from them!
For they are all adulterers,
    a company of treacherous men.
³They bend their tongue like a bow;
    falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land;
for they proceed from evil to evil,
    and they do not know me, declares the Lord.

⁴Let everyone beware of his neighbor,
    and put no trust in any brother,
for every brother is a deceiver,
    and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.
⁵Everyone deceives his neighbor,
    and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongue to speak lies;
    they weary themselves committing iniquity.
⁶Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit,
    they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.