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 hiding.

¹¹He has turned away my path,

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 mercies don’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 should 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’s 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.