Lamentations 3

Lamentations 3

¹I am the man that 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 against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.

⁴My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.

⁵He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.

⁶He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.

⁷He has walled me about, that I can’t go forth; 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 aside 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 am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.

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

¹⁶He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.

¹⁷You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity.

¹⁸I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from Yahweh.

¹⁹Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

²⁰My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.

²¹This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.

²² It is 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.

²⁴Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

²⁵Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that 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 so be there may be hope.

³⁰Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach.

³¹For the Lord will not cast off forever.

³²For though he cause 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 aside 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.

⁴²We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.

⁴³You have covered 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 midst of the peoples.

⁴⁶All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

⁴⁷Fear 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 look down, and see 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 at my breathing, at my cry.

⁵⁷You drew 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 devices against me.

⁶¹You have heard their reproach, Yahweh, and all their devices against me,

⁶²The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

⁶³You see their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song.

⁶⁴You will render to them a recompense, 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.