Lamentations 3

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

2. He has led me and made me go in darkness and not into light.

3. Surely He has turned, He has turned His hand against me again and again all day long.

4. He has wasted my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.

5. He has besieged me and has encircled me with bitterness and tribulation.

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

7. He has set a fence around me so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.

8. Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.

9. He has blocked my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths crooked.

10. He was as a bear lying in wait for me, as a lion in secret places.

11. He has turned my ways aside and has torn me to pieces. He has made me desolate.

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

13. He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.

14. I was a mockery to all my people, their song all the day.

15. He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.

16. He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; He has made me to wallow in ashes.

17. And my soul is removed far off from peace; I have forgotten happiness.

18. And I said, “My strength and my hope from the LORD are perished.”

19. Remember my affliction and my anguish, the wormwood and bitterness of gall.

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

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

22. It is by the LORD’S mercies that we are not destroyed, because His compassions never fail.

23. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

24. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul; “therefore I will hope in Him.”

25. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

26. It is good that one should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

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

28. Let him sit alone and in silence because He laid it upon him.

29. He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there may yet be hope.

30. Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled with 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 mercies.

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

34. To crush all the prisoners of the earth under his feet;

35. To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High;

36. To subvert a man in his cause—of this the LORD does not approve.

37. Who is this who speaks, and it comes to pass, when the LORD does not ordain it?

38. From the mouth of the Most High does not the bad and the good proceed?

39. Wherefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

40. Let us test and examine our ways, and return again to the LORD.

41. Let us lift up our heart and hands to God in heaven.

42. We have transgressed and have rebelled; You have not pardoned.

43. You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain unsparingly;

44. You have covered Yourself with a cloud that our prayer should not pass through.

45. You have made us as the offscouring and refuse among the people.

46. All our enemies have opened their mouths railing against us.

47. Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction.

48. Streams of water run down my eye for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

49. My eye flows down and does not cease, without any intermission,

50. Until the LORD shall look down and behold from heaven.

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

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

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

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

55. I called upon Your name, O LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.

56. You have heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear at my sighing, at my cry for help.”

57. You drew near in the day that I called upon You; You said, “Fear not.”

58. O LORD, You have pleaded for the causes of my soul; You have redeemed my life.

59. O LORD, You have seen the wrong done to me; You judge my cause.

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

61. You have heard their taunt, O LORD, all their imaginations against me;

62. The lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.

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

64. You will render to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

65. You will give them dullness of heart—Your curse be on them!

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