The Nation Longs for Yahweh’s Help

• 14 Why are we sitting? Gather, and let us go into the fortified cities,
• and let us perish there,
  • for Yahweh our God has caused us to perish,
• and has provided drink for us, water of poison,
  • because we have sinned against Yahweh.
  • 15 We hope for peace, but there is no good,
• for a time of healing,
  • but there is terror.
  • 16 “From Dan is heard the snorting of their horses, from the sound of the neighing of their stallions all the land quakes,
• for they come and devour the land,
  • and that which fills the city,
  • and those who live in it.
  • 17 For look, I am letting loose among you snakes, adders for which there is no incantation,
  • and they will bite you,” declares[fn] Yahweh.
  • 18 “My comfort is gone from me, sorrow is on me,
  • my heart is sick.
  • 19 Look, the sound of the cry for help of the daughter of my people from a distant land,
• ‘Is Yahweh not in Zion?
  • Is her king not in her?’
• Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
  • with idols of a foreign land?”
  • 20 The harvest has passed, the summer has come to an end,
• and we have not received help.[fn]