​The Prophet Mourns for the People

18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me;
    my heart is sick.
19 Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people
    from far and wide in the land:
"Is the Lord not in Zion?
    Is her King not in her?"
("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
    with their foreign idols?")
20 "The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved."
21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken,
    I mourn, and horror has seized me.

22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?

Photo titled Balm of Gilead by Deror Avi, Wikicommons. Graphic design by Cynthia Friesen Coyle.