Lamentations 1-2

English Standard Version

How Lonely Sits the City

1 ^(A)How lonely sits the city
    that was full of people!
How like ^(B)a widow has she become,
    she who was great among the nations!
She who was ^(C)a princess among the provinces
    has become ^(D)a slave.

²^(E)She weeps bitterly in the night,
    with tears on her cheeks;
^(F)among all her lovers
    she has ^(G)none to comfort her;
^(H)all her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
    they have become her enemies.

³^(I)Judah has gone into exile because of affliction^[a]
    and hard servitude;
^(J)she dwells now among the nations,
    ^(K)but finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
    in the midst of her distress.^[b]

⁴The roads to Zion mourn,
    for none come to ^(L)the festival;
^(M)all her gates are desolate;
    her priests ^(N)groan;
her virgins have been afflicted,^[c]
    and she herself suffers bitterly.

⁵^(O)Her foes have become the head;
    her ^(P)enemies prosper,
because ^(Q)the Lord has afflicted her
    ^(R)for the multitude of her transgressions;
^(S)her children have gone away,
    captives before the foe.

⁶From the daughter of Zion
    all her majesty has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
    ^(T)that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
    before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembers
    in the days of her affliction and wandering
^(U)all the precious things
    that were hers from ^(V)days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the foe,
    and there was none to help her,
her foes gloated over her;
    they ^(W)mocked at her downfall.

⁸^(X)Jerusalem sinned grievously;
    therefore she became filthy;
all who honored her despise her,
    ^(Y)for they have seen her nakedness;
she herself ^(Z)groans
    and turns her face away.

⁹Her uncleanness was ^(AA)in her skirts;
    ^(AB)she took no thought of her future;^[d]
therefore her fall is terrible;
    ^(AC)she has no comforter.
“O Lord, behold my affliction,
    for the enemy has ^(AD)triumphed!”

¹⁰The enemy has stretched out his hands
    over all her ^(AE)precious things;
for she has seen ^(AF)the nations
    enter her sanctuary,
those whom you ^(AG)forbade
    to enter your congregation.

¹¹All her people ^(AH)groan
    as ^(AI)they search for bread;
they trade their ^(AJ)treasures for ^(AK)food
    to revive their strength.
“Look, O Lord, and see,
    for I am despised.”

¹²“Is it nothing to you, all ^(AL)you who pass by?
    ^(AM)Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
    which was brought upon me,
which ^(AN)the Lord inflicted
    on ^(AO)the day of his fierce anger.

¹³“From on high he ^(AP)sent fire;
    into my bones^[e] he made it descend;
^(AQ)he spread a net for my feet;
    he turned me back;
^(AR)he has left me stunned,
    faint all the day long.

¹⁴“My transgressions were bound^[f] into ^(AS)a yoke;
    by his hand they were fastened together;
they were set upon my neck;
    he caused my strength to fail;
the Lord gave me into the hands
    of those whom I cannot withstand.

¹⁵“The Lord rejected
    all my mighty men in my midst;
he summoned an assembly against me
    to crush my young men;
^(AT)the Lord has trodden as in a winepress
    the virgin daughter of Judah.

¹⁶“For these things ^(AU)I weep;
    my eyes flow with tears;
for ^(AV)a comforter is far from me,
    one to ^(AW)revive my spirit;
my children are desolate,
    for the enemy has prevailed.”

¹⁷^(AX)Zion stretches out her hands,
    but ^(AY)there is none to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded against Jacob
    that his neighbors should be his foes;
Jerusalem has become
    a filthy thing among them.

¹⁸^(AZ)“The Lord is in the right,
    ^(BA)for I have rebelled against his word;
but hear, all you peoples,
    and see my suffering;
^(BB)my young women and my young men
    have gone into captivity.

¹⁹“I called to ^(BC)my lovers,
    but they deceived me;
my priests and elders
    perished in the city,
while ^(BD)they sought food
    to revive their strength.

²⁰“Look, O Lord, for I am in distress;
    ^(BE)my stomach churns;
my heart is wrung within me,
    because I have been very rebellious.
^(BF)In the street the sword bereaves;
    in the house it is like death.

²¹“They heard^[g] ^(BG)my groaning,
    yet ^(BH)there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
    ^(BI)they are glad that you have done it.
You have brought^[h] the day you announced;
    ^(BJ)now let them be as I am.

²²^(BK)“Let all their evildoing come before you,
    and deal with them
as ^(BL)you have dealt with me
    because of all my transgressions;
for ^(BM)my groans are many,
    and ^(BN)my heart is faint.”

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

2 How the Lord in his anger
    has set the daughter of Zion ^(BO)under a cloud!
^(BP)He has cast down from heaven to earth
    the splendor of Israel;
he has not remembered ^(BQ)his footstool
    in the day of his anger.

²The Lord ^(BR)has swallowed up ^(BS)without mercy
    all the habitations of Jacob;
in his wrath ^(BT)he has broken down
    the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
he has brought ^(BU)down to the ground ^(BV)in dishonor
    the kingdom ^(BW)and its rulers.

³He has cut down in ^(BX)fierce anger
    all ^(BY)the might of Israel;
^(BZ)he has withdrawn from them his right hand
    in the face of the enemy;
^(CA)he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
    consuming all around.

⁴^(CB)He has bent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set ^(CC)like a foe;
and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes
in the tent of the daughter of Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.

⁵^(CD)The Lord has become like an enemy;
    ^(CE)he has swallowed up Israel;
^(CF)he has swallowed up all its palaces;
    he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
    ^(CG)mourning and lamentation.

⁶He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
laid in ruins ^(CH)his meeting place;
^(CI)the Lord has made Zion forget
festival and ^(CJ)Sabbath,
and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.

⁷^(CK)The Lord has scorned his altar,
    ^(CL)disowned his sanctuary;
^(CM)he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
    the walls of her palaces;
^(CN)they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord
    as on the day of festival.

⁸^(CO)The Lord determined to lay in ruins
    ^(CP)the wall of the daughter of Zion;
^(CQ)he stretched out the measuring line;
    he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
^(CR)he caused rampart and wall to lament;
    ^(CS)they languished together.

⁹Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    ^(CT)he has ruined ^(CU)and broken her bars;
^(CV)her king and princes are among the nations;
    the law is no more,
and ^(CW)her prophets find
    no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion
    ^(CX)sit on the ground ^(CY)in silence;
^(CZ)they have thrown dust on their heads
    and ^(DA)put on sackcloth;
the young women of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.

¹¹^(DB)My eyes are spent with weeping;
    ^(DC)my stomach churns;
^(DD)my bile is poured out to the ground
    ^(DE)because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
^(DF)because infants and babies ^(DG)faint
    in the streets of the city.

¹²They cry to their mothers,
    ^(DH)“Where is bread and wine?”
^(DI)as they faint like a wounded man
    in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
    on their mothers' bosom.

¹³What can I say for you, ^(DJ)to what compare you,
    O daughter of Jerusalem?
^(DK)What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you,
    O virgin daughter of Zion?
^(DL)For your ruin is vast as the sea;
    who can heal you?

¹⁴^(DM)Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
^(DN)they have not exposed your iniquity
    to ^(DO)restore your fortunes,
^(DP)but have seen for you ^(DQ)oracles
    that are false and misleading.

¹⁵All who pass along the way
    clap their hands at you;
^(DR)they hiss and wag their heads
    at the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
    ^(DS)the perfection of beauty,
    ^(DT)the joy of all the earth?”

¹⁶^(DU)All your enemies
    rail against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
    they cry: “We ^(DV)have swallowed her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
    now we have it; ^(DW)we see it!”

¹⁷The Lord has done what he purposed;
    he has carried out ^(DX)his word,
which he commanded ^(DY)long ago;
    ^(DZ)he has thrown down ^(EA)without pity;
^(EB)he has made the enemy rejoice over you
    and exalted the ^(EC)might of your foes.

¹⁸Their heart cried to the Lord.
    O ^(ED)wall of the daughter of Zion,
^(EE)let tears stream down like a torrent
    ^(EF)day and night!
^(EG)Give yourself no rest,
    ^(EH)your eyes no respite!

¹⁹“Arise, ^(EI)cry out in the night,
    at the beginning of the night watches!
^(EJ)Pour out your heart like water
    before the presence of the Lord!
^(EK)Lift your hands to him
    for the lives of your children,
^(EL)who faint for hunger
    at the head of every street.”

²⁰Look, O Lord, and see!
    ^(EM)With whom have you dealt thus?
^(EN)Should women eat the fruit of their womb,
    the children of ^(EO)their tender care?
Should ^(EP)priest and prophet be killed
    in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹In the dust of the streets
    ^(EQ)lie the young and the old;
^(ER)my young women and my young men
    have fallen by the sword;
^(ES)you have killed them in the day of your anger,
    slaughtering ^(ET)without pity.

²²You summoned as if to ^(EU)a festival day
    ^(EV)my terrors on every side,
^(EW)and on the day of the anger of the Lord
    no one escaped or survived;
^(EX)those whom I held and raised
    my enemy destroyed.

Footnotes

Lamentations 1:3 Or under affliction
Lamentations 1:3 Or in the narrow passes
Lamentations 1:4 Septuagint, Old Latin dragged away
Lamentations 1:9 Or end
Lamentations 1:13 Septuagint; Hebrew bones and
Lamentations 1:14 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
Lamentations 1:21 Septuagint, Syriac Hear
Lamentations 1:21 Syriac Bring

Song of Solomon 2

English Standard Version

2 I am a rose^[a] of Sharon,
^(A)a lily of the valleys.

He

²As a lily among brambles,
so is ^(B)my love among the young women.

She

³As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
    so is my ^(C)beloved among the young men.
With great delight I sat ^(D)in his shadow,
    and his ^(E)fruit was sweet to my taste.
⁴He ^(F)brought me to the banqueting house,^[b]
    and his ^(G)banner over me was love.
⁵Sustain me with ^(H)raisins;
    refresh me with apples,
    ^(I)for I am sick with love.
⁶His ^(J)left hand is under my head,
    and his right hand ^(K)embraces me!
⁷I ^(L)adjure you,^[c] O ^(M)daughters of Jerusalem,
    by ^(N)the gazelles or the does of the field,
that you not stir up or awaken love
    until it pleases.

The Bride Adores Her Beloved

⁸The voice of my beloved!
    Behold, he comes,
leaping ^(O)over the mountains,
    bounding over the hills.
⁹My beloved is like ^(P)a gazelle
    or a young stag.
Behold, there he stands
    behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
    looking through the lattice.
¹⁰My beloved speaks and says to me:
^(Q)“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
    and come away,
¹¹for behold, the winter is past;
    ^(R)the rain is over and gone.
¹²^(S)The flowers appear on the earth,
    the time of singing^[d] has come,
and the voice of ^(T)the turtledove
    is heard in our land.
¹³^(U)The fig tree ripens its figs,
    and ^(V)the vines are in blossom;
    they give forth fragrance.
^(W)Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
    and come away.
¹⁴O my ^(X)dove, in the ^(Y)clefts of the rock,
    in the crannies of the cliff,
let me see your face,
    let me ^(Z)hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet,
    and your face is ^(AA)lovely.
¹⁵Catch ^(AB)the foxes^[e] for us,
    the little foxes
that spoil the vineyards,
    ^(AC)for our vineyards are in blossom.”

¹⁶^(AD)My beloved is mine, and I am his;
    he ^(AE)grazes^[f] among the lilies.
¹⁷Until ^(AF)the day breathes
    and ^(AG)the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, be like ^(AH)a gazelle
    or a young stag on cleft mountains.^[g]

Footnotes

Song of Solomon 2:1 Probably a bulb, such as a crocus, asphodel, or narcissus
Song of Solomon 2:4 Hebrew the house of wine
Song of Solomon 2:7 That is, I put you on oath; so throughout the Song
Song of Solomon 2:12 Or pruning
Song of Solomon 2:15 Or jackals
Song of Solomon 2:16 Or he pastures his flock
Song of Solomon 2:17 Or mountains of Bether

Hebrews 12

English Standard Version

Jesus, Founder and Perfecter of Our Faith

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and ^(A)sin which clings so closely, and ^(B)let us run ^(C)with endurance the race that is ^(D)set before us, ²looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, ^(E)who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising ^(F)the shame, and ^(G)is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Do Not Grow Weary

³^(H)Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or ^(I)fainthearted. ⁴In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

^(J)“My son, ^(K)do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
⁶For ^(L)the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

⁷It is for discipline that you have to endure. ^(M)God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸If you are left without discipline, ^(N)in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to ^(O)the Father of spirits ^(P)and live? ¹⁰For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, ^(Q)that we may share his holiness. ¹¹^(R)For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields ^(S)the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

¹²Therefore ^(T)lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, ¹³and ^(U)make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint ^(V)but rather be healed. ¹⁴^(W)Strive for peace with everyone, and for the ^(X)holiness ^(Y)without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵See to it that no one ^(Z)fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ^(AA)“root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; ¹⁶that no one is ^(AB)sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷For you know that ^(AC)afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

¹⁸For you have not come to ^(AD)what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest ¹⁹and ^(AE)the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words ^(AF)made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. ²⁰For they could not endure the order that was given, ^(AG)“If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” ²¹Indeed, ^(AH)so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” ²²But you have come to ^(AI)Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, ^(AJ)the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ^(AK)innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³and to ^(AL)the assembly^[a] of the firstborn who are ^(AM)enrolled in heaven, and to ^(AN)God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, ^(AO)the mediator of a new covenant, and to ^(AP)the sprinkled blood ^(AQ)that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

²⁵See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For ^(AR)if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ²⁶At that time ^(AS)his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ^(AT)“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” ²⁷This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates ^(AU)the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸Therefore let us be grateful for receiving ^(AV)a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus ^(AW)let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, ²⁹for our ^(AX)God is a consuming fire.