CHAPTER 8
1At that time, said the LORD, they shall take out from their graves the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its nobles and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets living in Jerusalem. 2And they shall spread them out before the sun and before the moon and before all the array of the heavens that they loved and that they worshipped and after which they went and that they sought out and to which they bowed down. They shall not be gathered in nor shall they be buried. Manure on the face of the soil they shall be. 3And death shall be preferable to life for all the remnant of those remaining from this evil clan in all the remaining places where I will drive them, said the LORD of Armies. 4And you shall say to them, thus said the LORD:
If they fall, will they not rise?
If they turn back, will they not turn?
5Why is this people a rebel,
Jerusalem, everlasting rebellion?
They have clung to deception,
refused to turn back.
6I listened closely and have heard—
no honesty do they speak.
No man regrets his evil,
saying, “What have I done?”
They all go in their headlong course
like a horse rushing forward in battle.
7Even the stork in the heavens
knows its seasons,
and the turtledove, the swift, and the crane
keep the time of their coming.
But my people does not know
the justice of the LORD.
8How could you say, “We are wise,
and the LORD’s teaching is with us”?
has the scribes’ lying pen made it.
9The wise shall be shamed,
they shall fear and be caught.
Look, the word of the LORD they rejected,
and what wisdom do they have?
10Therefore will I give their wives to others,
their fields to dispossessors,
for from the least to the greatest
they all chase gain,
from prophet to priest
all of them work lies.
11And they would heal the wound of My People’s Daughter easily,
saying, “All is well,” but it is not well—
12They are shamed,
for abominations they have performed.
Therefore shall they fall among those who fall,
in their time of reckoning they shall stumble,
said the LORD.
13I will surely sweep them up, said the LORD,
There are no grapes on the vine
nor figs on the fig tree,
and the leaf is withered,
and I will give them to those they shall serve.
14“Why are we sitting here?
Gather, that we may enter the fortified towns
and be silent there,
for the LORD our God has silenced us
and made us drink venom-water,
for we have offended the LORD.”
15Hope for peace and there is nothing good,
for a time of healing, and, look, terror!
16From Dan is heard his horses’ snorts,
from the sound of his chargers’ neighing
the whole earth shakes.
And they shall come and consume the land and its fullness,
the town and the dwellers within it.
17For I am about to send against you
viper-serpents that cannot be charmed,
and they shall bite you, said the LORD.
18I catch my breath from sorrow,
my heart within me aches.
19Look, the sound of My People’s Daughter crying out
from a faraway land:
“Is the LORD not in Zion,
is her King not within her?”—
Why did they vex Me with their idols,
with alien empty breath?
20“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended,
and we have not been rescued.”
21Over the breaking of my People’s Daughter I am broken,
I plunge in gloom, desolation has gripped me.
22Is there no balm in Gilead,
to my People’s Daughter?
23Would that my head were water
and my eye the font of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain of my People’s Daughter.