Lamentations 3

¹ I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of his wrath;

²he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;

³surely against me he turns his hand
again and again the whole day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;

⁵ he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;

⁶ he has made me dwell in darkness
like the dead of long ago.

⁷ He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has made my chains heavy;

⁸though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;

⁹ he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰ He is a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding;

¹¹ he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;
he has made me desolate;

¹² he bent his bow and set me
as a target for his arrow.

¹³He drove into my kidneys
the arrows of his quiver;

¹⁴ I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,
the object of their taunts all day long.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness;
he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶ He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;

¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;

¹⁸ so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.”

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!

²⁰My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.

²¹But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;

²³they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.

²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.

²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.

²⁸Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;

²⁹ let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;

³⁰ let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.

³¹ For the Lord will not
cast off forever,

³²but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

³³ for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.

³⁴To crush underfoot
all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵ to deny a man justice
in the presence of the Most High,

³⁶to subvert a man in his lawsuit,
the Lord does not approve.

³⁷ Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?

³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad come?

³⁹ Why should a living man complain,
a man, about the punishment of his sins?

⁴⁰Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord!

⁴¹ Let us lift up our hearts and hands
to God in heaven:

⁴² “We have transgressed and rebelled,
and you have not forgiven.

⁴³“You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
killing without pity;

⁴⁴ you have wrapped yourself with a cloud
so that no prayer can pass through.

⁴⁵ You have made us scum and garbage
among the peoples.

⁴⁶ “All our enemies
open their mouths against us;

⁴⁷ panic and pitfall have come upon us,
devastation and destruction;

⁴⁸ my eyes flow with rivers of tears
because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹ “My eyes will flow without ceasing,
without respite,

⁵⁰ until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees;

⁵¹my eyes cause me grief
at the fate of all the daughters of my city.

⁵² “I have been hunted like a bird
by those who were my enemies without cause;

⁵³ they flung me alive into the pit
and cast stones on me;

⁵⁴ water closed over my head;
I said, ‘I am lost.’

⁵⁵ “I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;

⁵⁶ you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
your ear to my cry for help!’

⁵⁷ You came near when I called on you;
you said, ‘Do not fear!’

⁵⁸“You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
you have redeemed my life.

⁵⁹You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord;
judge my cause.

⁶⁰You have seen all their vengeance,
all their plots against me.

⁶¹ “You have heard their taunts, O Lord,
all their plots against me.

⁶²The lips and thoughts of my assailants
are against me all the day long.

⁶³ Behold their sitting and their rising;
I am the object of their taunts.

⁶⁴ “You will repay them, O Lord,
according to the work of their hands.

⁶⁵You will give them dullness of heart;
your curse will be on them.

⁶⁶You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
from under your heavens, O Lord.”

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