8:18 Then I said,
“There is no cure for my grief!
I am sick at heart!
8:19 I hear my dear people crying out
throughout the length and breadth of the land.
They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion?
Is her divine King no longer there?’”
The Lord answers,
“Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?”
8:20 “They cry, ‘Harvest time has come and gone, and the summer is over,
and still we have not been delivered.’
8:21 My heart is crushed because my dear people are being crushed.
I go about crying and grieving. I am overwhelmed with dismay.
8:22 There is still medicinal ointment available in Gilead!
There is still a physician there!
Why then have my dear people
not been restored to health?
9:1 (8:23) I wish that my head were a well full of water
and my eyes were a fountain full of tears!
If they were, I could cry day and night
for those of my dear people who have been killed.
9:2 (9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert
where I could spend some time like a weary traveler.
Then I would desert my people
and walk away from them
because they are all unfaithful to God,
a congregation of people that has been disloyal to him.