Home Master Index
←Prev   Lamentations 3 as rendered by/in  Next→ 


3:1  I am a man who has known affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.
3:2  He has led me and forced me to walk in darkness, not in the light.
3:3  Against me alone he has turned his hand again and again, throughout the day.
3:4  He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away; he has broken my bones.
3:5  He has besieged me and enveloped me with bitterness and hardship.
3:6  He has forced me to dwell in darkness like those long dead.
3:7  He has walled me in so that I cannot escape, and he weighed me down with heavy chains.
3:8  Even when I cry out and plead for help, he shuts out my prayer.
3:9  He has barred my way with blocks of stones and obstructed my paths.
3:10  He has been for me a bear lying in wait or a lion hiding in ambush.
3:11  He has led me away and torn me to pieces, leaving me helpless.
3:12  He has bent his bow and used me as the target for his arrows.
3:13  He has pierced deep within me with the shafts from his quiver.
3:14  I have become a laughingstock to my people; they taunt me in song throughout the day.
3:15  He has given me my fill of bitter herbs and sated me with wormwood.
3:16  He has broken my teeth with gravel and trampled my face into the dust.
3:17  My soul is deprived of peace; I no longer remember what happiness is.
3:18  Thus I cry out that my glory is gone as well as everything that I had hoped for from the Lord.
3:19  The realization of my poverty and homelessness is wormwood and gall to me.
3:20  My soul continually reflects on this and is left downcast within me.
3:21  However, I will call this to mind as the reason for my hope:
3:22  The love of the Lord is never exhausted, nor do his deeds of mercy ever come to an end.
3:23  They are renewed every morning; his faithfulness never ceases.
3:24  The Lord is my portion, I say to myself; therefore, I will place my hope in him.
3:25  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
3:26  It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of the Lord.
3:27  It is good for a man to bear the yoke from his youth.
3:28  Let that man sit alone and in silence when the yoke is laid upon him.
3:29  Let him bury his head in the dust; there may still be hope.
3:30  Let him offer his cheek to those who strike him and endure their insults.
3:31  For the rejection by the Lord will not last forever.
3:32  Even though he punishes, he will be compassionate in the abundance of his unfailing love.
3:33  For he does not willingly afflict or cause grief to the children of men.
3:34  When all the prisoners in a country are trampled underfoot,
3:35  when human rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High,
3:36  when someone is deprived of justice in the courts— is the Lord not aware of such evils?
3:37  Who has only to command and it is done if the Lord has not given his approval?
3:38  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that evil and good proceed?
3:39  Why then should any people complain about being punished for their sins?
3:40  Let us examine and test our ways and return to the Lord.
3:41  Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven.
3:42  We have sinned and rebelled, and you have not forgiven us.
3:43  You have veiled yourself in anger and pursued us, slaying us without pity.
3:44  You have wrapped yourself in a cloud that no prayer can pierce.
3:45  You have reduced us to filth and rubbish among the nations.
3:46  All of our enemies have opened their mouths in a chorus of jeers against us.
3:47  Terror and pitfall, devastation and ruin, have been our lot.
3:48  My eyes flow with a torrent of tears because of the destruction of my people.
3:49  My eyes will flow with unceasing tears, and there will be no respite
3:50  until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees.
3:51  My eyes are swollen with grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
3:52  Those who were my enemies without justification have hunted me down like a bird.
3:53  They thrust me alive into a pit and hurled down stones at me.
3:54  The waters rose above my head, and I said, “I am lost.”
3:55  I called upon your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit.
3:56  You heard me plead, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help!”
3:57  You came near when I called out to you, and you said, “Do not fear.”
3:58  O Lord, you have taken up my cause, and you have redeemed my life.
3:59  You have seen the unjust treatment I endure; grant me justice.
3:60  You have seen all their vindictiveness, all their plots against me.
3:61  You have heard their insults, O Lord; all their plots against me,
3:62  the whispers and murmuring of my foes against me all day long.
3:63  Whether they sit or stand, see how I am the object of their taunts.
3:64  Pay them back for their deeds, O Lord; punish them as they deserve.
3:65  Give them hardness of heart as your curse upon them.
3:66  Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord.