Lamentations 3:1-40 ▼

1 I am the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath.

2 He has driven me and made me walk In darkness and not in light.

3 Surely against me He has turned His hand Repeatedly all the day.

4 He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away; He has broken my bones.

5 He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship.

6 Dark places He has made me inhabit, Like those who have long been dead.

7 He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.

8 Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.

9 He has blocked my ways with cut 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 torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate.

12 He bent His bow And set me as a target for the arrow.

13 He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts.

14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their music of mockery all the day.

15 He has saturated me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood.

16 He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.

17 My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten goodness.

18 So I say, “My strength has perished, As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.”

19 Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and gall.

20 Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me.

21 This I will return to my heart; Therefore I will wait in hope.

22 The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

24 “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.”

25 Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him, To the soul who seeks Him.

26 It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of Yahweh.

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

28 Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him.

29 Let him put his mouth in the dust; Perhaps there is hope.

30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; Let him be saturated with reproach.

31 For the Lord will not reject forever,

32 For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness.

33 For He does not afflict from His heart Or grieve the sons of men.

34 To crush under His feet All the prisoners of the land,

35 To deprive a man of justice In the presence of the Most High,

36 To defraud a man in his legal case— These things the Lord does not see with approval.

37 Who is there who speaks and it happens, Unless the Lord has commanded it?

38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both calamities and good go forth?

39 Why should any living person or any man Complain because of his sins?

40 Let us search out and examine our ways, And let us return to Yahweh.