Lamentations 3:1–5:22
Jeremiah Shares Israel’s Affliction
1 I am the man who has aseen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
2 He has driven me and made me walk
In adarkness and not in light.
3 Surely against me He has aturned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
4 He has caused my aflesh and my skin to waste away,
He has bbroken my bones.
5 He has abesieged and encompassed me with bbitterness and hardship.
6 In adark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
7 He has awalled me in so that I cannot go out;
8 Even when I cry out and call for help,
He ashuts out my prayer.
9 He has ablocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
11 He has turned aside my ways and atorn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12 He abent His bow
And bset me as a target for the arrow.
13 He made the 1arrows of His aquiver
To enter into my 2inward parts.
14 I have become a alaughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking bsong all the day.
15 He has afilled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
16 He has abroken my teeth with bgravel;
He has made me cower in the cdust.
17 My soul has been rejected afrom peace;
I have forgotten 1happiness.
18 So I say, “My strength has perished,
And so has my ahope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my 1wandering, the awormwood and bitterness.
20 Surely amy soul remembers
And is bbowed down within me.
Therefore I have ahope.
22 The Lord’s alovingkindnesses 1indeed never cease,
bFor His compassions never fail.
23 They are new aevery morning;
Great is bYour faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my aportion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I bhave hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who await for Him,
To the 1person who bseeks Him.
26 It is good that he awaits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him asit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29 Let him 1put his mouth in the adust,
Perhaps there is bhope.
30 Let him give his acheek to 1the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.
31 For the Lord will anot reject forever,
Then He will have acompassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
33 For He adoes not afflict 1willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.
All the prisoners of the 1land,
35 To 1deprive a man of ajustice
In the presence of the Most High,
36 To 1adefraud a man in his lawsuit—
Of these things the Lord does not 2approve.
37 Who is 1there who speaks and it acomes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That 1aboth good and ill go forth?
39 Why should any living 1mortal, or any man,
Offer acomplaint 2in view of his sins?
40 Let us aexamine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the Lord.
41 We alift up our heart 1and hands
Toward God in heaven;
42 We have atransgressed and rebelled,
You have bnot pardoned.
43 You have covered Yourself with aanger
And bpursued us;
You have slain and chave not spared.
44 You have acovered Yourself with a cloud
So that bno prayer can pass through.
45 You have made us mere aoffscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
46 All our enemies have aopened their mouths against us.
47 aPanic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;
48 My 1aeyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes pour down aunceasingly,
Without stopping,
50 Until the Lord alooks down
And sees from heaven.
51 My eyes bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies awithout cause
Hunted me down blike a bird;
53 They have silenced 1me ain the pit
And have 2bplaced a stone on me.
54 Waters flowed aover my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
55 I acalled on Your name, O Lord,
Out of the lowest pit.
56 You have aheard my voice,
“bDo not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help.”
57 You adrew near when I called on You;
You said, “bDo not fear!”
58 O Lord, You ahave pleaded my soul’s cause;
You have bredeemed my life.
59 O Lord, You have aseen my oppression;
bJudge my case.
60 You have seen all their vengeance,
All their aschemes against me.
61 You have heard their areproach, O Lord,
All their schemes against me.
62 The alips of my assailants and their whispering
Are against me all day long.
63 Look on their asitting and their rising;
bI am their mocking song.
64 You will arecompense them, O Lord,
According to the work of their hands.
65 You will give them 1ahardness of heart,
Your curse will be on them.
66 You will apursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the bheavens of the Lord!
Distress of the Siege Described
1 How adark the gold has become,
How the pure gold has changed!
The sacred stones are poured out
At the 1corner of every street.
Weighed against fine gold,
How they are regarded as aearthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!
3 Even ajackals offer the breast,
They nurse their young;
But the daughter of my people has become bcruel
Like costriches in the wilderness.
4 The atongue of the infant cleaves
To the roof of its mouth because of bthirst;
The little ones cask for bread,
But no one breaks it for them.
5 Those who ate adelicacies
Are desolate in the streets;
Those 1reared in purple
Embrace ash pits.
6 For the 1iniquity of the daughter of my people
Is greater than the 2asin of Sodom,
Which was boverthrown as in a moment,
And no hands were 3turned toward her.
7 Her 1consecrated ones were apurer than snow,
They were whiter than milk;
They were more ruddy in 2body than corals,
Their polishing was like 3blapis lazuli.
8 Their appearance is ablacker than soot,
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their bskin is shriveled on their bones,
It is withered, it has become like wood.
9 Better are those 1aslain with the sword
Than those 1slain with hunger;
For they 2bpine away, being stricken
For lack of the fruits of 3the field.
10 The hands of compassionate women
aBoiled their own children;
They became bfood for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord has aaccomplished His wrath,
He has poured out His fierce anger;
And He has bkindled a fire in Zion
Which has consumed its foundations.
12 The kings of the earth did not believe,
Nor did any of athe inhabitants of the world,
That the adversary and the enemy
Could benter the gates of Jerusalem.
13 Because of the sins of her aprophets
And the iniquities of her priests,
Who have shed in her midst
The bblood of the righteous;
14 They wandered, ablind, in the streets;
They were defiled with bblood
So that no one could touch their cgarments.
15 “Depart! aUnclean!” 1they cried of themselves.
“Depart, depart, do not touch!”
So they bfled and wandered;
Men among the nations said,
“They shall not continue to dwell with us.”
16 The presence of the Lord has scattered them,
He will not continue to regard them;
They did not 1ahonor the priests,
They did not favor the elders.
Looking for 1help was auseless;
In our watching we have watched
For a bnation that could not save.
18 They ahunted our steps
So that we could not walk in our streets;
Our bend drew near,
Our days were 1finished
For our end had come.
19 Our pursuers were aswifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They chased us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.
20 The abreath of our nostrils, the bLord’s anointed,
Was ccaptured in their pits,
Of whom we had said, “Under his dshadow
We shall live among the nations.”
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of aEdom,
Who dwells in the land of Uz;
But the bcup will come around to you as well,
You will become drunk and make yourself naked.
22 The punishment of your iniquity has been acompleted, O daughter of Zion;
He will exile you no longer.
But He bwill punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
He will expose your sins!
1 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
Look, and see our areproach!
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to astrangers,
Our bhouses to aliens.
3 We have become orphans awithout a father,
Our mothers are like widows.
4 1We have to pay for our drinking awater,
Our wood comes to us at a price.
5 1Our pursuers are at our necks;
We are worn out, there is ano rest for us.
6 We have 1submitted to aEgypt and Assyria 2to get enough bread.
7 Our afathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have borne their iniquities.
8 aSlaves rule over us;
There is bno one to deliver us from their hand.
9 We get our bread 1at the arisk of our lives
2Because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin has become as ahot as an oven,
Because of 1the burning heat of famine.
11 They ravished the awomen in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes were hung by their hands;
13 Young men 1aworked at the grinding mill,
And youths bstumbled under loads of wood.
14 Elders 1are gone from the gate,
Young men from their amusic.
15 The joy of our hearts has aceased;
Our dancing has been turned into mourning.
16 The acrown has fallen from our head;
bWoe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our aheart is faint,
Because of these things our beyes are dim;
18 Because of aMount Zion which lies desolate,
bFoxes prowl in it.
19 aYou, O Lord, 1rule forever;
Your bthrone is from generation to generation.
20 Why do You aforget us forever?
Why do You forsake us 1so long?
21 aRestore us to You, O Lord, that we may be restored;
Renew bour days as of old,
22 Unless aYou have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly bangry with us.