Lamentations 3 ⓘ
3:1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
3:2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
3:3 Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.
3:4 He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.
3:5 He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
3:6 He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.
3:7 He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.
3:8 Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
3:9 He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.
3:10 He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.
3:11 He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
3:12 He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
3:13 He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
3:14 I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
3:15 He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.
3:16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.
3:17 You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity.
3:18 I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.”
3:19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.
3:20 My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
3:21 This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope.
3:22 It is because of The LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail.
3:23 They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
3:24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”
3:25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
3:26 It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
3:28 Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
3:29 Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope.
3:30 Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach.
3:31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
3:32 For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
3:33 For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
3:34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
3:35 to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
3:36 to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.
3:37 Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?
3:38 Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
3:39 Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
3:41 Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
3:42 “We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned.
3:43 “You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.
3:44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
3:45 You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples.
3:46 “All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
3:47 Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”
3:48 My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49 My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,
3:50 until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven.
3:51 My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
3:52 They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
3:53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
3:54 Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”
3:55 I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.
3:56 You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.”
3:57 You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.”
3:58 Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life.
3:59 LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.
3:60 You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me.
3:61 You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me,
3:62 the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.
3:63 You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
3:64 You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands.
3:65 You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
3:66 You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.