Lamentations 3:1-21 ▼

1 I am one who has known affliction under the rod of God’s anger,

2 One whom he has driven and forced to walk in darkness, not in light;

3 Against me alone he turns his hand— again and again all day long.

4 He has worn away my flesh and my skin, he has broken my bones;

5 He has besieged me all around with poverty and hardship;

6 He has left me to dwell in dark places like those long dead.

7 He has hemmed me in with no escape, weighed me down with chains;

8 Even when I cry for help, he stops my prayer;

9 He has hemmed in my ways with fitted stones, and made my paths crooked.

10 He has been a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding!

11 He turned me aside and tore me apart, leaving me ravaged.

12 He bent his bow, and set me up as a target for his arrow.

13 He pierced my kidneys with shafts from his quiver.

14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their taunt all day long;

15 He has sated me with bitterness, filled me with wormwood.

16 He has made me eat gravel, trampled me into the dust;

17 My life is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is;

18 My enduring hope, I said, has perished before the LORD.

19 The thought of my wretched homelessness is wormwood and poison;

20 Remembering it over and over, my soul is downcast.

21 But this I will call to mind; therefore I will hope: