Bones Brought out of the Graves
People fall and get up again; this people falls and stays down. Migrating birds know their season better than Judah knows her Father's ways. Jeremiah, sick with grief, asks whether there is any balm in Gilead — and the chapter does not answer him.
8 1"At that time,' declares our Father, 'they will remove the bones of Judah's kings, officials, priests, prophets, and Jerusalem's people from their graves. 2They will be spread before sun, moon, and all heaven's host they loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped—ungathered, unburied, manure on the ground. 3All the remnant of this evil family, wherever I have driven them, will choose death over life,' declares the Father of heaven's armies.
A People Who Will Not Return
4"Tell them, 'This is what our Father says: If people fall, don't they rise? If someone turns away, doesn't he return? 5Why then has this people, Jerusalem, turned away in perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return.' 6I have listened closely, but they do not speak what is right. No one turns from his evil, asking, 'What have I done?' Each one runs his own course, like a horse charging into battle. 7Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the turtledove, the swift, and the crane keep the time of their coming. But my people do not know the just ways of their Father. 8How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of our Father is with us,' when in fact the lying pen of the scribes has turned it into a lie? 9The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Look, they have rejected my word, so what wisdom is left in them? 10Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to new owners. For from the least to the greatest, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest, everyone practices deceit.' 11They dress the wound of the daughter of my people as though it were nothing, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace. 12Were they ashamed of the detestable things they did? No, they felt no shame at all; they did not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I deal with them, they will be brought down,' says our Father. 13'I will surely gather them in,' declares our Father. 'There will be no grapes on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and the leaves will wither; what I gave them will pass away from them.'
14"Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for our Father has doomed us to perish and has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him."
15We hoped for peace, but no good has come; for a time of healing, but instead there is terror. 16The snorting of the enemy's horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land trembles. They come and devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.
17"For look, I am sending venomous snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you," declares our Father.
Jeremiah Weeps for His People
18My joy is gone, grief overwhelms me; my heart is sick within me. 19Listen—the cry of the daughter of my people from a land far away: "Is our Father not in Zion? Is her King no longer in her?" "Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images, with their worthless foreign idols? 20The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved." 21For the wound of the daughter of my people I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. 22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the healing of the daughter of my people not come?
