Broken Cisterns

Two evils my people have done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Jeremiah 2:13

We walked the desert distance

in search of welcome lands,

but dug these broken cisterns,

like graves, with our own hands.

We chased our own insistence

that shimmered on the sands:

Now we are trapped and twisted

in thirst that never ends.



Make haste, O loving Father,

to seek us ere we die,

your wayward sons and daughters

who flee your gentle eye.

We turned from what you offered,

yet, Mercy, hear our cry:

Pour out your living water,

for, oh! our hearts are dry!



Though what we dug was broken,

yet you can make it whole;

the years lost to the locust

in you can be restored.

Redeem our slipshod workings;

our wasted days transform:

Let them, too, hold your goodness:

Pour out your grace, O Lord!

Remains of a Nabataean cistern north of Makhtesh Ramon, southern IsraelBy Wilson44691 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18792763