What does Jeremias Chapter 8 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Exposed bones and refused return frame the accusation. Bird times and scribal falsehood contrast with boastful wisdom. Unfulfilled healing expectations conclude in balm and physician questions.

Chapter breakdown

Jeremias 8 announces bones of kings, princes, priests, prophets and inhabitants cast from graves before sun, moon and heavenly host they worshipped. Ungathered and unburied, they are like dung. Remaining wicked kindred in places of banishment choose death. Questions about falling and turning challenge Jerusalem's refusal to return, lying and unrepented sin; their course resembles a horse rushing to battle.

Kite, turtle, swallow and stork know their times of coming, unlike people ignorant of judgment. Boasted wisdom and law meet a lying scribal pen, rejected word and captured, dismayed wise men. Women and fields pass to others amid covetousness and prophet-priest deceit. Disgraceful healing says Peace without peace; shameless abomination precedes falling. Gathering has no grapes or figs, fallen leaf and things passed away. The communal voice urges entry to the fenced city and silence, acknowledging sin and water of gall; expected peace and healing meet fear.

Dan's horse snorting and warriors' neighing shake land, followed by devouring city and inhabitants. Serpents and basilisks without charm bite; their identification with a named Babylonian army is not supplied. Sorrow and mourning hear a distant daughter's questions about Lord and king in Sion and provocation through idols. Harvest passes and summer ends without salvation. Affliction leads to questions about balm, physician and an unclosed wound in Galaad, without an answer declaring incurability or expired opportunities for all future grace.

The story inside

Opening: Exposed bones and refused return frame the accusation. Development: Bird times and scribal falsehood contrast with boastful wisdom. Conclusion: Unfulfilled healing expectations conclude in balm and physician questions.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Exposed bones and refused return frame the accusation.
2
Bird times and scribal falsehood contrast with boastful wisdom.
3
Unfulfilled healing expectations conclude in balm and physician questions.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 84859–84876
8:7. The kite in the air hath known her time: the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming: but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord. 8:8. How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Indeed the lying pen of the scribes hath wrought falsehood. 8:9. The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed, and taken: for they have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them. 8:10. Therefore will I give their women to strangers, their fields to others for an inheritance: because from the least even to the greatest all follow covetousness: from the prophet even to the priest all deal deceitfully. 8:11. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: when there was no peace.
Lines 84909–84915
8:20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 8:21. For the affliction of the daughter of my people I am afflicted, and made sorrowful, astonishment hath taken hold on me. 8:22. Is there no balm in Galaad? or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed?