¹At that time, says the Lord, they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of their officials, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from their graves. ²And they will spread them out to the sun and to the moon and to the whole host of the heavens which they loved and which they served, and after which they went, and which they inquired of, and which they worshipped. They will not be gathered, and they will not be buried, but they will be dung on the surface of the land. ³And death will be chosen rather than life, by all the remnant of this evil family who remain, in all the places which remain, to which I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.’ ⁴And you will say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:

«Will they fall,

And not arise?

Will one turn away from me,

And not turn back to me?

⁵Why is this people

– Apostate Jerusalem –

Constantly rebellious?

They have persisted in deceit;

They have refused to return.

⁶I listened and I heard,

But they did not speak honestly.

There is no man

Who has repented of his evil,

Who says,

‹What have I done?›

They have all turned away in their impetuousness,

Like a horse charging into battle.

⁷Even the stork in the sky

Knows its set times,

And the turtle-dove and swallow and the crane

Keep the time of their arrival,

But my people

Do not know the justice of the Lord.

⁸How can you say,

‹We are wise,

And the law of the Lord is with us?›

Truly, look, he made it in vain;

The scribes' pen is in vain.

⁹The wise men have been put to shame.

They are terrified, and they have been caught.

Look, they have rejected the word of the Lord,

And what wisdom do they have?

¹⁰That is why I will give their wives to others,

And their fields to those who take possession of them,

Because from small to great,

They have all relentlessly made unjust gain;

Among both prophet and priest

They all deal falsely.

¹¹And they had an easy way of healing the demise of my people,

Saying, ‹Peace, peace›,

When there was no peace.

¹²Were they ashamed when they committed an abomination?

They were not ashamed at all,

Nor did they have a sense of ignominy,

Which is why they will be among those who fall.

At the time of their visitation,

They will stumble,

Says the Lord.

¹³I will certainly make an end of them,

Says the Lord.

There are no grapes on the vine,

And no figs on the fig tree,

And the foliage is withering.

And what I have given them,

They transgress.» ’ ”

¹⁴Why are we sitting down?

Gather yourselves,

And let us go to the fortified cities

And be silent there,

For the Lord our God has silenced us,

And he has given us hemlock water to drink,

For we have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵We waited for peace,

But there was nothing good,

For a time of healing,

But what came was terror.

¹⁶From Dan the snorting of his horses was heard.

At the sound of neighing of his mighty animals,

All the earth trembled.

And they came, and they devoured the land and its fulness,

And the city and those living in it.

¹⁷“For I am about to send serpents and vipers against you,

Which cannot be charmed,

And they will bite you,

Says the Lord.”

¹⁸My cheerfulness has turned into sorrow;

My heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Just hear the sound of the crying out

Of the daughter of my people,

From a distant land.

Is the Lord not at Zion?

Or is her king not in her?

“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images

– With their foreign idols?”

²⁰The harvest has passed away;

The summer has ended,

But we have not been saved.

²¹I am distressed at the distress

Of the daughter of my people.

I am dejected;

Astonishment has taken hold of me.

²²Is there no balsam in Gilead?

Or is there no doctor there?

So why has the health of the daughter of my people not blossomed?