Login Go Premium

Lamentations 3

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.

21I recall this to my mind,

Therefore I wait.

22The Lord’s acts of mercy indeed do not end,

For His compassions do not fail.

23They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“Therefore I wait for Him.”

25The Lord is good to those who await Him,

To the person who seeks Him.

26It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the Lord.

27It is good for a man to bear

The yoke in his youth.

28Let him sit alone and keep quiet,

Since He has laid it on him.

29Let him put his mouth in the dust;

Perhaps there is hope.

30Let him give his cheek to the one who is going to strike him;

Let him be filled with shame.

31For the Lord will not reject forever,

32For if He causes grief,

Then He will have compassion

In proportion to His abundant mercy.

33For He does not afflict willingly

Or grieve the sons of mankind.

34To crush under one’s feet

All the prisoners of the land,

35To deprive a man of justice

In the presence of the Most High,

36To defraud someone in his lawsuit—

Of these things the Lord does not approve.

37Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,

Unless the Lord has commanded it?

38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

That both adversity and good proceed?

39Of what can any living mortal, or any man,

Complain in view of his sins?

40Let’s examine and search out our ways,

And let’s return to the Lord.

41We raise our heart and hands

Toward God in heaven;

42We have done wrong and rebelled;

You have not pardoned.

43You have covered Yourself with anger

And pursued us;

You have slain and have not spared.

44You have veiled Yourself with a cloud

So that no prayer can pass through.

45You have made us mere refuse and rubbish

In the midst of the peoples.

46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

47Panic and pitfall have come upon us,

Devastation and destruction;

48My eyes run down with streams of water

Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

49My eyes flow unceasingly,

Without stopping,

50Until the Lord looks down

And sees from heaven.

51My eyes bring pain to my soul

Because of all the daughters of my city.

52My enemies without reason

Hunted me down like a bird;

53They have silenced me in the pit

And have thrown stones on me.

54Waters flowed over my head;

I said, “I am cut off!”

55I called on Your name, Lord,

Out of the lowest pit.

56You have heard my voice,

“Do not cover Your ear from my plea for relief,

From my cry for help.”

57You came near on the day I called to You;

You said, “Do not fear!”

58Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause;

You have redeemed my life.

59Lord, You have seen my oppression;

60You have seen all their vengeance,

All their schemes against me.

61You have heard their reproach, Lord,

All their schemes against me.

62The lips of my assailants and their talk

Are against me all day long.

63Look at their sitting and their rising;

I am their mocking song.

64You will repay them, Lord,

In accordance with the work of their hands.

65You will give them shamelessness of heart,

Your curse will be on them.

66You will pursue them in anger and eliminate them

From under the heavens of the Lord!

Lamentations

Chapter 3

3 of 5