1
God's Message that came to Jeremiah regarding the drought: "Judah weeps,
her cities mourn.
The people fall to the ground, moaning,
while sounds of Jerusalem's sobs rise up, up.
The rich people sent their servants for water.
They went to the cisterns, but the cisterns were dry.
They came back with empty buckets,
wringing their hands, shaking their heads.
All the farm work has stopped.
Not a drop of rain has fallen.
The farmers don't know what to do.
They wring their hands, they shake their heads.
Even the doe abandons her fawn in the field
because there is no grass -
Eyes glazed over, on her last legs,
nothing but skin and bones."
7
We know we're guilty. We've lived bad lives -
but do something, God. Do it for your sake!
Time and time again we've betrayed you.
No doubt about it - we've sinned against you.
Hope of Israel! Our only hope!
Israel's last chance in this trouble!
Why are you acting like a tourist,
taking in the sights, here today and gone tomorrow?
Why do you just stand there and stare,
like someone who doesn't know what to do in a crisis?
But God, you are, in fact, here, here with us!
You know who we are - you named us!
Don't leave us in the lurch.
10
Then God said of these people: "Since they loved to wander this way and that,
never giving a thought to where they were going,
I will now have nothing more to do with them -
except to note their guilt and punish their sins."
11 God said to me, "Don't pray that everything will turn out all right for this people. When they skip their meals in order to pray, I won't listen to a thing they say. When they redouble their prayers, bringing all kinds of offerings from their herds and crops, I'll not accept them. I'm finishing them off with war and famine and disease."