Then I said, ¹  “There is no cure ²  for my grief! I am sick at heart!

Leave your orphans behind and I will keep them alive. Your widows too can depend on me.” ¹ 

The people I call my own ¹  have turned on me like a lion ²  in the forest. They have roared defiantly ³  at me. So I will treat them as though I hate them. ⁴ 

People of Jerusalem, ¹  go up to Lebanon and cry out in mourning. Go to the land of Bashan and cry out loudly. Cry out in mourning from the mountains of Moab. ²  For your allies ³  have all been defeated.

They will lay it waste. It will lie parched ¹  and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed. ² 

As your words came to me I drank them in, ¹  and they filled my heart with joy and happiness because I belong to you. ² 

Go up to Gilead and get medicinal ointment, ¹  you dear poor people of Egypt. ²  But it will prove useless no matter how much medicine you use; ³  there will be no healing for you.

Before this I had been like a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter. I did not know they were making plans to kill me. ¹  I did not know they were saying, ²  “Let’s destroy the tree along with its fruit! ³  Let’s remove Jeremiah ⁴  from the world of the living so people will not even be reminded of him any more.” ⁵ 

But you, Lord, know all their plots to kill me. Do not pardon their crimes! Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! ¹  Let them be brought down in defeat before you! Deal with them while you are still angry! ²