Lamentations 3

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

World English Bible (public domain)