Lamentations 3
Revised Geneva Translation
3 I am the man who has seen affliction in the rod of His indignation.
2 He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not to light.
3 Surely, He has turned against me; His Hand overturns me all day long.
4 He has caused my flesh and my skin to grow old. He has broken my bones.
5 He has built against me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has set me in dark places, as those who are dead forever.
7 He has put a hedge around me, so that I cannot get out. He has made my chains heavy.
8 Also, when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my way with hewn stone, turned away my paths.
10 He was, to me, like a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
11 He has blocked my way and torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
12 He has bent His bow and made me a mark for the arrow.
13 He caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my core.
14 I was a laughingstock to all my people, their song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness, made me drunk with wormwood.
16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes.
17 Thus, my soul was far away from peace. I forgot what is good.
18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.”
19 Remember my affliction and my mourning, the wormwood and the bitterness.
20 My soul has remembered them and is humbled in me.
21 I consider this in my heart; therefore, I have hope.
22 It is because of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed. His compassions do not fail.
23 They are renewed every morning. Great is Your faithfulness!
24 “The LORD is my portion;” says my soul, “therefore, I will hope in Him!”
25 The LORD is good to those who trust in Him, to the soul that seeks Him.
26 It is good to wait, watchfully yet silently, for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth.
28 He sits alone and keeps silent because he has borne it upon him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust. Perhaps there may be hope.
30 He gives his cheek to him who strikes him. He is fully filled with reproach.
31 For the LORD will not forsake forever.
32 But though He sends affliction, He will still have compassion, according to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the children of men.
34 To stamp under His feet all the prisoners of the Earth,
35 to divert the rights of a man before the Face of the Most High,
36 to subvert a man in his cause, the LORD does not approve.
37 Who is he, then, who speaks and it happens, if the LORD has not Commanded it?
38 Does not both misery and prosperity proceed out of the Mouth of the Most High?
39 Why, then, does a man, living and mighty, complain about the penalty for his sins?
40 Let us search and test our ways and turn back to the LORD.
41 Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens.
42 We have sinned and have rebelled. You have not spared.
43 You have covered us with wrath, and persecuted us. You have killed, not spared.
44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud, so that prayer would not pass through.
45 You have made us offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 My eyes run down with rivers of water for the destruction of the Daughter of my people.
49 My eyes run down without pause, and will not cease
50 until the LORD looks down and beholds from Heaven.
51 My eyes break my heart, because of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies hunted me like a bird, without cause.
53 They have shut up my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over my head. I thought, “I am destroyed.”
55 I called upon Your Name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.
56 You have heard my voice. Do not hide Your Ear from my sigh, from my cry.
57 You drew near on the day that I called upon You. You said: “Do not fear.”
58 O LORD, You have maintained the cause of my soul, have redeemed my life.
59 O LORD, You have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.
60 You have seen all their vengeance, all their devices against me:
61 You have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me,
62 the lips of those who rose against me, and their continual whispering against me.
63 Behold their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
64 Give them recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart. Your curse be upon them!
66 Persecute with wrath and destroy them from under the heavens, O LORD.
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