Lamentations 3

EasyEnglish Bible

3 I am the man who has seen trouble.
God punished me because he was angry with me.
² He has led me into the dark.
There is no light, so I cannot see the right way.
³ He is completely against me.^[b]
He causes me trouble all the time.
⁴ God has caused my skin and my whole body to become old.
He has broken my bones.
⁵ He has fought against me from every side.
He caused much trouble for me,
so that I am very sad.
⁶ He has brought me to this dark place.
So I am like a person who has been dead for a long time.
⁷ It is as if God has built high walls round me, and I cannot go out.
My troubles are very bad.
They hold me down like heavy chains.
⁸ I shout and I pray for help, but God does not listen.
⁹ On every road that I go along, he has put big rocks in my way.
I cannot go past them.
¹⁰ God is like a strong wild animal.
He hides and he waits for me by the path.
¹¹ He is like an animal that catches me and pulls me off the path.
He tears me in pieces and then he leaves me without any help.
¹² God is like a soldier with a bow and arrows.
He used his bow to shoot at me.
¹³ It was as if he shot me in the heart with his arrows.
¹⁴ All the people see me and laugh.
They even sing silly songs about me all the time.
¹⁵ God has caused my life to become a thing of pain.
It is as if he filled a cup with a very bitter drink for me.
¹⁶ It is as if he caused me to eat small stones, so that the stones broke my teeth.
Then he put me on the ground, and he pushed me down in the dirt.
¹⁷ He has taken peace away from my mind.
I cannot remember the happy days that I had before.
¹⁸ I tell myself, ‘Everything good has finished for me!
The things that I hoped for from the Lord have not come!’
¹⁹ Lord, please remember all my troubles, because I am sad.
Remember that I am very lonely.
My troubles are like poison for me.
²⁰ I think about all those things,
and I feel small and alone.
²¹ But then I choose to remember God,
and this is my hope:^[c]
22 The Lord's faithful love never comes to an end.
He never stops being kind to us.^[d]
23 Every day, we can trust him to be kind again.
We know that he will do what he has promised to do.
²⁴ ‘He is my Lord,’ I say to myself.
‘He is the reason why I can hope for good things.’
²⁵ The Lord does good things for people who wait for him.
He is kind to everyone who looks for him.
²⁶ It is good when people continue to hope.
It is good when they quietly wait for the Lord,
because he will save them.
²⁷ It is also good for people to obey God when they are young.
They should work well for him.
²⁸ Also, when the Lord causes them to be in trouble,
they should sit alone quietly.^[e]
29 They should be humble in front of God.^[f]
Then hope may come again.
³⁰ If somebody hits them or insults them, they should accept it.^[g]
31 The Lord does not turn against people for ever.
³² He does cause people to feel sad sometimes,
but he is sorry for us.
He is also very kind to us, because he loves us very much.
³³ He does not enjoy seeing people who are in pain.
He does not enjoy causing trouble for them.^[h]
34 Bad people may be cruel to those who are in prison.
³⁵ They may turn against the Most High God and cheat people.
³⁶ They may tell lies in court.
The Lord is not happy when he sees any of those bad things.
³⁷ The Lord causes things to happen.
Nobody can cause things to happen without him.
³⁸ The Most High God causes all things to happen.
He causes good things and bad things to happen when he speaks.
³⁹ He only punishes us when we do wrong things.
We are still alive, so we should not be angry with God.
⁴⁰ Instead, we should think a lot about what we do,
and we should turn back to the Lord again.
⁴¹ We should lift up our hands and pray to God in heaven.^[i]
We should be honest with God and say to him,
⁴² ‘We have done wrong things,
and we have turned against you.
You have not forgiven us.
⁴³ You have hidden yourself from us because you are angry.
You have followed us so that you could kill us.
You were not sorry about it.
⁴⁴ You have hidden from us in a cloud.
So you do not listen to us when we talk to you.
⁴⁵ You let people from other countries think bad things about us.
They think that we have no value.
We are like things that nobody can use any longer.
⁴⁶ All our enemies have insulted us.
⁴⁷ We have become afraid of them.
They have caught us and they have destroyed us and our things.’^[j]
48 I weep, and my eyes are red with all my tears.
It is because the enemy has killed my people.
⁴⁹ Tears come like a river from my eyes and they will not stop,
⁵⁰ until the Lord looks down on us from heaven.
He will see us and he will help us.
⁵¹ I see what has happened to all the people in my city.
And so I am very sad.
⁵² My enemies had no reason to follow me.
But they caught me as they would catch a bird.
⁵³ They put me alive into the well,
and they threw stones down on me.
⁵⁴ The water covered my head.
Then I said, ‘I will soon die.’
⁵⁵ I shouted your name, Lord,
when I was in the well.
⁵⁶ ‘Please listen to me, Lord,’ I shouted.
‘Help me! Save me!’ I shouted,
and you heard me.
⁵⁷ You came near to me when I prayed to you.
‘Do not be afraid,’ you said.
⁵⁸ Lord, you have given me help.
You have paid the price to keep me alive.
⁵⁹ You saw the bad things that they did to me.
So please agree with me that they were not fair!
⁶⁰ You know all the bad things that they did to me.
And you know about all the bad things that they want to do to me.
⁶¹ You have heard their cruel words against me, Lord.
Yes, you know about all the bad things that they want to do to me.
⁶² These people have been cruel to me.
They attack me with cruel words every hour of the day.
⁶³ Look at them as they sing cruel things about me.
They sing when they are sitting, and they sing when they are standing.
⁶⁴ Punish them for what they have done, Lord.
⁶⁵ Cause them to think that they cannot hope for anything good.
Cause bad things to happen to them.
⁶⁶ Run after them angrily.
Kill them all because you are angry with them.
Let nobody on earth remember them any longer.