Lamentations 3:1–20

¹I am the man who has seen affliction

under the rod of his wrath;

²he has driven and brought me

into 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,

and broken my bones;

⁵he has besieged and enveloped me

with bitterness and tribulation;

⁶he has made me dwell in darkness

like the dead of long ago.

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

he has put heavy chains on me;

⁸though I call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;

⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,

he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰He is to me like a bear lying in wait,

like a lion in hiding;

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

he has made me desolate;

¹²he bent his bow and set me

as a mark for his arrow.

¹³He drove into my heart

the arrows of his quiver;

¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,

the burden of their songs all day long.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,

he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and made me cower in ashes;

¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace,

I have forgotten what happiness is;

¹⁸so I say, “Gone is my glory,

and my expectation from the Lord.”

¹⁹Remember my affliction and my bitterness,^k

the wormwood and the gall!

²⁰My soul continually thinks of it

and is bowed down within me.