Jehovah is slinging out the inhabitants of Israel and bringing distress on them (v. 18). He is casting them away like stones.
A great commotion is coming from the north land (Babylon) to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a habitation of jackals (v. 22). The nations have consumed Jacob and brought him to an end (v. 25).
Jehovah came in to correct His hypocritical worshippers, and Jeremiah reacted to Jehovah's correction of Israel. We see Jeremiah's reaction in certain portions of chapters eight, nine, and ten. These portions show us that the prophet's reaction was very tender, sympathetic, and compassionate.
Jeremiah longed for someone to comfort him in his sorrow, and his heart within him was faint (8:18). He could hear the voice of the cry of the daughter of his people in a land far away. For the brokenness of the daughter of his people he himself was broken (vv. 19, 21). In verse 22 he said, "Is there no balm in Gilead? / Is there no physician there? / Why then has the recovery of the daughter of my people / Not occurred?" Here we have the sighing of the prophet over the people of Israel.
In his reaction to the situation concerning Israel, Jeremiah wished that his head were waters and his eye a fountain of tears, that he might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of his people (9:1). Then he went on to say, "Oh, that I had a traveler's lodging place in the wilderness / That I might leave my people and go away from them, / For all of them are adulterers and an assembly of treacherous men" (v. 2). Jeremiah was disgusted with Israel and wished that he could live in the wilderness apart from them.