- God sends a message through Jeremiah: Judah's under siege totally demoralized. When nobles send their servants to get water from the cistern, they find it dry.
- A drought is just making everything worse. Even the wild asses are hungry and exhausted.
- In the voice of Israel as a whole, Jeremiah asks God why he's like a stranger towards Israel. He knows God could help if he wanted to.
- At the same time, he says he can't deny that Israel's sins have been pretty bad.
- God responds, saying that he's had it with Israel because they love to stray (and he does not love the way they lie).
- God tells Jeremiah not to pray for his people. He won't accept their fasts and their offerings. Instead, he's going to slaughter them with war, famine, and pestilence.
- Jeremiah asks God why the other prophets are all telling the people that there will be peace.
- God says that he didn't send these prophets; they're a pack of misguided liars, spreading false info, all that "don't worry, be happy" stuff.
- Those prophets will all die by the sword, and their relatives and followers will be consumed by war and famine, with no one to bury their corpses.
- But Jeremiah's supposed to tell the people that he weeps for them, seeing their dead bodies scattered everywhere he looks.
- The people (or Jeremiah speaking in their voice) end the chapter by begging for mercy.
- They admit they've been pretty impossible to deal with, and ask God to keep up his side of the covenant.