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;

He has made my 1bchain heavy.

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.”