Lamentations 3:34–66

³⁴To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, ³⁵to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, ³⁶to wrong a man in his cause, —will not the Lord see it?

³⁷Who is he that saith, and there cometh to pass, what the Lord hath not commanded? ³⁸Out of the mouth of the Most High doth not there proceed evil and good? ³⁹Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? ⁴⁰Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah. ⁴¹Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto •God in the heavens.

⁴²We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. ⁴³Thou hast covered thyself with anger, and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not spared. ⁴⁴Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through. ⁴⁵Thou hast made us the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples. ⁴⁶All our enemies have opened their mouth against us. ⁴⁷Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and ruin. ⁴⁸Mine eye runneth down with streams of water for the ruin of the daughter of my people. ⁴⁹Mine eye poureth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, ⁵⁰till Jehovah look down and behold from the heavens. ⁵¹Mine eye affecteth my soul, because of all the daughters of my city. ⁵²They that are mine enemies without cause have chased me sore like a bird. ⁵³They have cut off my life in a pit, and cast a stone upon me. ⁵⁴Waters streamed over my head; I said, I am cut off.

⁵⁵I called upon thy name, Jehovah, out of the lowest pit. ⁵⁶Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my sighing, at my cry. ⁵⁷Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou saidst, Fear not. ⁵⁸Lord, thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul, thou hast redeemed my life. ⁵⁹Jehovah, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause. ⁶⁰Thou hast seen all their vengeance, all their imaginations against me. ⁶¹Thou hast heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their imaginations against me; ⁶²the lips of those that rise up against me and their meditation against me all the day. ⁶³Behold thou their sitting down and their rising up: I am their song. ⁶⁴Render unto them a recompence, O Jehovah, according to the work of their hands; ⁶⁵give them obduracy of heart, thy curse unto them; ⁶⁶pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Jehovah.