¹At that time, says the Lord , they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his officials, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves.[#Eze 6:5]

²And they will spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be as dung upon the face of the earth.[#2Ki 23:5; #Jer 9:22]

³Death will be chosen rather than life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil family, which remains in all the places wherever I have driven them, says the Lord of Hosts.[#Job 7:15–16; Rev 9:6]

Sin and Judgment

⁴Moreover you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord :

Do men fall and not arise?

Do they turn away and not repent?

⁵Why then is this people of Jerusalem

turned away by a perpetual backsliding?

They hold fast to deceit;

they refuse to return.

⁶I listened and heard,

but they did not speak what is right.

No man repented of his wickedness,

saying, “What have I done?”

Everyone turned to his course,

as the horse rushes into the battle.

⁷Indeed, the stork in the sky

knows her appointed times.

And the turtledove and the crane and the swallow

observe the time of their coming.

But My people do not know

the judgment of the Lord .

⁸How do you say, “We are wise,[#Job 5:12–13; Ro 1:22]

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 are ashamed;

they are dismayed and caught.

Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord ,

and what kind of wisdom do they have?

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to others,

and their fields to those who shall inherit them.

For everyone from the least even to the greatest

is given to covetousness;

from the prophet even to the priest

everyone deals falsely.

¹¹For they have healed the brokenness

of the daughter of My people superficially,

saying, “Peace, peace,”

when there is no peace.

¹²Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?

They were not at all ashamed,

nor could they blush.

Therefore they will fall among those who fall;

in the time of their punishment they will be cast down,

says the Lord .

¹³I will surely consume them,

says the Lord .

There will be no grapes on the vine

nor figs on the fig tree,

and the leaf shall fade;

and the things that I have given them

will pass away from them.

¹⁴Why do we sit still?

Assemble yourselves,

and let us enter the fortified cities

and let us perish there.

For the Lord our God has doomed us

and given us water of gall to drink,

because we have sinned against the Lord .

¹⁵We looked for peace,

but no good came;

and for a time of health,

but behold, terror!

¹⁶The snorting of his horses

was heard from Dan;

the whole land trembled

at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones.

For they have come and have devoured

the land and all that is in it,

the city, and those who dwell in it.

¹⁷Behold, I will send serpents against you,

adders, which will not be charmed,

and they will bite you,

declares the Lord .

Jeremiah Mourns for His People

¹⁸My sorrow is beyond healing;[#Isa 22:4; La 1:16–17]

my heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people

from a far country:

“Is not the Lord in Zion?

Is not her king in her?”

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

with foreign vanities?”

²⁰“The harvest is past,

the summer is ended,

and we are not saved.”

²¹For the brokenness of the daughter of my people am I broken;[#Jer 14:17; Joel 2:6]

I mourn; dismay has taken hold of me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?[#Ge 37:25; Jer 46:11]

Is there no physician there?

Why then has not the health

of the daughter of my people recovered?