Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart.
“I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.
They dress the wound of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
She had borne much agony under the care of many physicians and had spent all she had, but to no avail. Instead, her condition had only grown worse.
“Indeed,” declares the LORD, “I am against those who prophesy false dreams and retell them to lead My people astray with their reckless lies. It was not I who sent them or commanded them, and they are of no benefit at all to these people,” declares the LORD.
When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.
There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sores, no recovery for you.
Go up to Gilead for balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt! In vain you try many remedies, but for you there is no healing.
On hearing this, Jesus told them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strays, or searched for the lost. Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty.
For now you are of no help; you see terror, and you are afraid.