Lamentations 3

¹ I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

² He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.

³ Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.

⁴ He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.

⁵ He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

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

⁷ He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.

⁸ Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.

⁹ He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰ He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.

¹¹ He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.

¹² He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

¹³ He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.

¹⁴ I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.

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

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

¹⁸ I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from Yahweh.”

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

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

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

²² It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail.

²³ They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

²⁴ “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”

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

²⁶ It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.

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

²⁸ Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.

²⁹ Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope.

³⁰ Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach.

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off forever.

³² For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.

³³ For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

³⁴ To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵ to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,

³⁶ to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.

³⁷ Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?

³⁸ Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

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

⁴⁰ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.

⁴¹ Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God¹ 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.

⁴⁴ You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

⁴⁵ You 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.

⁴⁷ Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”

⁴⁸ My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹ My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,

⁵⁰ until Yahweh looks down, and sees from heaven.

⁵¹ My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.

⁵² They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

⁵³ They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.

⁵⁴ Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”

⁵⁵ I called on your name, Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon.

⁵⁶ You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.”

⁵⁷ You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.”

⁵⁸ Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life.

⁵⁹ Yahweh, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.

⁶⁰ You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me.

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

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

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

⁶⁴ You will pay them back, Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.

⁶⁵ You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.

⁶⁶ You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.