Lamentations 3

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

2He has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not light.

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

4He has worn away my flesh and my skin; he has broken my bones.

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

6He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.

7He has walled me in so that I cannot get out; he has made my chain heavy.

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

9He has walled in my ways with hewn stone; he has made my paths crooked.

10He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding places.

11He turned my paths aside and tore me apart; he made me desolate.

12He bent his bow and set me up as a target for the arrow.

13He drove the sons of his quiver into my kidneys.

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

15He has filled me with bitterness; he has made me drink wormwood.

16He has ground my teeth with gravel; he has pressed me down into the ashes.

17You have thrust my soul away from peace; I have forgotten goodness.

18So I said, “My endurance has perished, and my hope from Yahweh.”

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

20My soul continually remembers and is bowed down within me.

21This I call to mind; therefore I have hope.

22Because of Yahweh’s steadfast love we are not consumed, for his mercies never come to an end.

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 that seeks him.

26It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of Yahweh.

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

28Let him sit alone and be silent, for 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 strikes him; let him be filled with reproach.

31For the Lord will not reject forever.

32For if he causes grief, he will also show compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

33For he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the sons of men.

34to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

35to deny a man justice before the face of the Most High—

36to deny a man justice in his case—the Lord does not approve.

37Who is this who speaks and it happens, unless the Lord has commanded it?

38Do not both calamities and good come from the mouth of the Most High?

39Why should a living man complain, a man, about his sins?

40Let us examine our ways and search them out, and let us return to Yahweh.

41Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in heaven.

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

43You covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you killed without pity.

44You have covered yourself with a cloud so that prayer cannot pass through.

45You have made us scum and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

47Terror and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction.

48Streams of water run down from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people.

49My eye runs down and does not cease, without interruption,

50until Yahweh looks down and sees from heaven.

51My eye causes grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

52My enemies hunted me like a bird, without cause.

53They silenced my life in the pit, and threw a stone at me.

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

55I called on your name, O Yahweh, from the depths of the pit.

56You heard my voice: do not hide 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.”

58You have defended the cause of my soul, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.

59You have seen, O Yahweh, the wrong done to me; judge my case.

60You have seen all their vengeance, all their schemes against me.

61You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh, all their schemes against me.

62the lips of those who rise against me, and their muttering against me all day long.

63Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their song.

64You will repay them, O Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.

65You will give them hardness of heart; your curse will be upon them.

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