Lamentations 3:1–20

Great Is Your Faithfulness

3^kI am the man who has seen affliction

under the ^lrod of his wrath;

²he has driven and brought me

^minto darkness without any light;

³surely against me he turns his hand

again and again the whole day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;

ⁿhe has broken my bones;

^5ohe has besieged and enveloped me

with ^pbitterness and tribulation;

^6qhe has made me dwell in darkness

like the dead of long ago.

^7rHe has walled me about so that ^sI cannot escape;

he has made my chains heavy;

⁸though ^tI call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;

^9rhe has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

^10uHe is a bear lying in wait for me,

a lion in hiding;

^11vhe turned aside my steps and ^utore me to pieces;

^whe has made me desolate;

^12xhe bent his bow ^yand set me

as a target for his arrow.

¹³He drove into my kidneys

^zthe arrows of his quiver;

^14aI have become the laughingstock of all my people,¹

^bthe object of their taunts all day long.

^15cHe has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with ^dwormwood.

^16eHe has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and ^fmade me cower in ashes;

¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness² is;

^18gso I say, “My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the Lord.”

^19hRemember my affliction and my wanderings,

^dthe wormwood and ⁱthe gall!

²⁰My soul continually remembers it

^jand is bowed down within me.