You who are my Comforter in sorrow,
    my heart is faint within me.
¹⁹ Listen to the cry of my people
    from a land far away:
‘Is the Lord not in Zion?
    Is her King no longer there?’

‘Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
    with their worthless foreign idols?’

²⁰ ‘The harvest is past,
    the summer has ended,
    and we are not saved.’

²¹ Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
    I mourn, and horror grips me.
²² Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
    for the wound of my people?
9 Oh, that my head were a spring of water
    and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
    for the slain of my people.
² Oh, that I had in the desert
    a lodging place for travellers,
so that I might leave my people
    and go away from them;
for they are all adulterers,
    a crowd of unfaithful people.

³ ‘They make ready their tongue
    like a bow, to shoot lies;
it is not by truth
    that they triumph in the land.
They go from one sin to another;
    they do not acknowledge me,’
declares the Lord.
⁴ ‘Beware of your friends;
    do not trust anyone in your clan.
For every one of them is a deceiver,
    and every friend a slanderer.
⁵ Friend deceives friend,
    and no one speaks the truth.
They have taught their tongues to lie;
    they weary themselves with sinning.
⁶ You live in the midst of deception;
    in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,’
declares the Lord.

⁷ Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says:

‘See, I will refine and test them,
    for what else can I do
    because of the sin of my people?
⁸ Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
    it speaks deceitfully.
With their mouths they all speak cordially to their neighbours,
    but in their hearts they set traps for them.
⁹ Should I not punish them for this?’
    declares the Lord.
‘Should I not avenge myself
    on such a nation as this?’