Lamentations 3:1–66

God’s Steadfast Love Endures

3 I am one who has seen affliction

under the rod of God’si wrath;*

2 he has driven and brought me

into darkness without any light;

3 against me alone he turns his hand,

again and again, all day long.*

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

he has broken my bones;*

5 he has besieged and enveloped me

with bitterness and tribulation;

6 he has made me sit in darkness

like the dead of long ago.*

7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;

he has put heavy chains on me;*

8 though I call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;*

9 he has blocked my ways with hewn stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

10 He is a bear lying in wait for me,

a lion in hiding;*

11 he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;

he has made me desolate;

12 he bent his bow and set me

as a mark for his arrow.*

13 He shot into my vitals

the arrows of his quiver;

14 I have become the laughingstock of all my people,

the object of their taunt songs all day long.*

15 He has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with wormwood.

16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel;

he has made me cower in ashes;

17 my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness is;

18 so I say, “Gone is my glory

and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.”

19 The thought of my affliction and my homelessness

is wormwood and gall!*

20 My soul continually thinks of it

and is bowed down within me.*

21 But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,j

his mercies never come to an end;*

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 that seeks him.*

26 It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.*

27 It is good for one to bear

the yoke in youth,*

28 to sit alone in silence

when the Lordk has imposed it,*

29 to put one’s mouth to the dust

(there may yet be hope),

30 to give one’s cheek to the smiter

and be filled with insults.*

31 For the Lord will not

reject forever.*

32 Although he causes grief, he will have compassion

according to the abundance of his steadfast love;*

33 for he does not willingly afflict

or grieve anyone.*

34 When all the prisoners of the land

are crushed under foot,

35 when justice is perverted

in the presence of the Most High,*

36 when one’s case is subverted—

does the Lord not see it?*

37 Who can command and have it done,

if the Lord has not ordained it?*

38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

that evil and good come?*

39 Why should any who draw breath complain

about the punishment of their sins?*

40 Let us test and examine our ways

and return to the Lord.*

41 Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands

to God in heaven.*

42 We have transgressed and rebelled,

and you have not forgiven.*

43 You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,

killing without pity;*

44 you have wrapped yourself with a cloud

so that no prayer can pass through.

45 You have made us filth and rubbish

among the peoples.*

46 All our enemies

have opened their mouths against us;*

47 panic and pitfall have come upon us,

devastation and destruction.*

48 My eyes flow with rivers of tears

because of the destruction of my people.l

49 My eyes will flow without ceasing,

without respite,*

50 until the Lord from heaven

looks down and sees.*

51 My eyes cause me grief

at the fate of all the young women in my city.

52 Those who were my enemies without cause

have hunted me like a bird;*

53 they flung me alive into a pit

and hurled stones on me;*

54 water closed over my head;

I said, “I am lost.”*

55 I called on your name, O Lord,

from the depths of the pit;*

56 you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear

to my cry for help, but give me relief!”*

57 You came near when I called on you;

you said, “Do not fear!”*

58 You have taken up my cause, O Lord;

you have redeemed my life.*

59 You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord;

judge my cause.

60 You have seen all their malice,

all their plots against me.*

61 You have heard their taunts, O Lord,

all their plots against me.

62 The whispers and murmurs of my assailants

are against me all day long.

63 Whether they sit or rise—see,

I am the object of their taunt songs.

64 Pay them back for their deeds, O Lord,

according to the work of their hands!

65 Give them anguish of heart;

your curse be on them!

66 Pursue them in anger and destroy them

from under the Lord’s heavens.*