Jeremiah's Afflictions and Hope

1I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

2He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

3Surely against me has he turned; he turns his hand against me all the day.

4My flesh and my skin has he made old: he has broken my bones.

5He has besieged me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.

6He has set me in dark places, like they that are long dead.

7He has hedged me in, that I cannot get out: he has made my chain heavy.

8Also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer.

9He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he has made my paths crooked.

10He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

11He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he has made me desolate.

12He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

13He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my heart.

14I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

15He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunk with wormwood.

16He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he has covered me with ashes.

17And you have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity.

18And I said, My strength and my hope has perished from the LORD:

19Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

20My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

21This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

22It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

23They are new every morning: great is your faithfulness.

24The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

25The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

26It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

28He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him.

29He puts his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

30He gives his cheek to him that strikes him: he is filled full with reproach.

31For the Lord will not cast off forever:

32But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

33For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

34To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

35To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

36To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approves not.

37Who is he that says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord commands it not?

38Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good?

39Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

40Let us search and examine our ways, and turn again to the LORD.

41Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.

42We have transgressed and have rebelled: you have not pardoned.

43You have covered with anger, and persecuted us: you have slain, you have not pitied.

44You have covered yourself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

45You have made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

47Fear and a snare has come upon us, desolation and destruction.

48My eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

49My eye flows down, and ceases not, without any intermission,

50Till the LORD looks down, and beholds from heaven.

51My eye affects my heart because of all the daughters of my city.

52My enemies chased me hard, like a bird, without cause.

53They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

54Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.

55I called upon your name, O LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.

56You have heard my voice: hide not your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

57You drew near in the day that I called upon you: you said, Fear not.

58O Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.

59O LORD, you have seen my wrong: judge you my cause.

60You have seen all their vengeance and all their plots against me.

61You have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their plots against me;

62The lips of those that rose up against me, and their whispering against me all the day.

63Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their music.

64Render unto them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

65Give them sorrow of heart, your curse unto them.

66Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.