Jeremiah 8

¹At that time , declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah , the bones of its officials , the bones of the priests , the bones of the prophets , and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs .

²And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven , which they have loved and served , which they have gone after , and which they have sought and worshiped . And they shall not be gathered or buried . They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground .

³Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts .

⁴You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: When men fall , do they not rise again? If one turns away , does he not return ?

⁵Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding ? They hold fast to deceit ; they refuse to return .

⁶I have paid attention and listened , but they have not spoken rightly ; no man relents of his evil , saying , What have I done ? Everyone turns to his own course , like a horse plunging headlong into battle .

⁷Even the stork in the heavens knows her times , and the turtledove , swallow , and crane keep the time of their coming , but my people know not the rules of the Lord.

⁸How can you say , We are wise , and the law of the Lord is with us? But behold , the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie .

⁹The wise men shall be put to shame ; they shall be dismayed and taken ; behold , they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them?

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors , because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain ; from prophet to priest , everyone deals falsely .

¹¹They have healed the wound of my people lightly , saying , Peace , peace , when there is no peace .

¹²Were they ashamed when they committed abomination ? No , they were not at all ashamed ; they did not know how to blush . Therefore they shall fall among the fallen ; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown , says the Lord.

¹³When I would gather them, declares 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 .

¹⁶The 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 that cannot be charmed , and they shall bite you, declares the Lord.

¹⁸My 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 ?

²⁰The 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 ?