17. For behold, I am sending among you serpents,adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you,”declares the Lord.
18. My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me.
19. Behold, the cry of the daughter of my peoplefrom the length and breadth of the land:“Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved imagesand with their foreign idols?”
20. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,and we are not saved.”
21. For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22. Is there no balm in Gilead?Is there no physician there?Why then has the health of the daughter of my peoplenot been restored?