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Lamentations 3:1-20

Read this passage and open each verse for the full verse feed and commentary tools.

Jeremiah Shares Israel’s Misery

1I am the man who has seen misery

Because of the rod of His wrath.

2He has driven me and made me walk

In darkness and not in light.

3Indeed, He has turned His hand against me

Repeatedly all the day.

4He has consumed my flesh and my skin,

He has broken my bones.

5He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

6He has made me live in dark places,

Like those who have long been dead.

7He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;

He has made my chain heavy.

8Even when I cry out and call for help,

He shuts out my prayer.

9He has blocked my ways with cut stone;

He has twisted my paths.

10He is to me like a bear lying in wait,

Like a lion in secret places.

11He has made my ways deviate, and torn me to pieces;

He has made me desolate.

12He bent His bow

And took aim at me as a target for the arrow.

13He made the arrows of His quiver

Enter my inward parts.

14I have become a laughingstock to all my people,

Their song of ridicule all the day.

15He has filled me with bitterness,

He has made me drink plenty of wormwood.

16He has also made my teeth grind with gravel;

He has made me cower in the dust.

17My soul has been excluded from peace;

I have forgotten happiness.

18So I say, “My strength has failed,

And so has my hope from the Lord.”

Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy

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

20My soul certainly remembers,

And is bent over within me.