Lamentations 3

Living Bible

3 I am the man who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of God’s wrath. ² He has brought me into deepest darkness, shutting out all light. ³ He has turned against me. Day and night his hand is heavy on me. ⁴ He has made me old and has broken my bones.

⁵ He has built forts against me and surrounded me with anguish and distress. ⁶ He buried me in dark places, like those long dead. ⁷ He has walled me in; I cannot escape; he has fastened me with heavy chains. ⁸ And though I cry and shout, he will not hear my prayers! ⁹ He has shut me into a place of high, smooth walls;^[a] he has filled my path with detours.

¹⁰ He lurks like a bear, like a lion, waiting to attack me. ¹¹ He has dragged me into the underbrush and torn me with his claws, leaving me bleeding and desolate.

¹² He has bent his bow and aimed it squarely at me, ¹³ and sent his arrows deep within my heart.

¹⁴ My own people laugh at me; all day long they sing their ribald songs.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness and given me a cup of deepest sorrows to drink. ¹⁶ He has made me eat gravel and broken my teeth; he has rolled me in ashes and dirt. ¹⁷ O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is. ¹⁸ All hope is gone; my strength has turned to water, for the Lord has left me. ¹⁹ Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me! ²⁰ For I can never forget these awful years; always my soul will live in utter shame.

²¹ Yet there is one ray of hope: ²² his compassion never ends. It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction. ²³ Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins afresh each day. ²⁴ My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him. ²⁵ The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him. ²⁶ It is good both to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

²⁷ It is good for a young man to be under discipline, ²⁸ for it causes him to sit apart in silence beneath the Lord’s demands, ²⁹ to lie face downward in the dust; then at last there is hope for him. ³⁰ Let him turn the other cheek to those who strike him and accept their awful insults, ³¹ for the Lord will not abandon him forever. ³² Although God gives him grief, yet he will show compassion too, according to the greatness of his loving-kindness. ³³ For he does not enjoy afflicting men and causing sorrow.

^34-36 But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you! ³⁷ For who can act against you without the Lord’s permission? ³⁸ It is the Lord who helps one and harms another.

³⁹ Why then should we, mere humans as we are, murmur and complain when punished for our sins? ⁴⁰ Let us examine ourselves instead, and let us repent and turn again to the Lord. ⁴¹ Let us lift our hearts and hands to him in heaven, ⁴² for we have sinned; we have rebelled against the Lord, and he has not forgotten it.

⁴³ You have engulfed us by your anger, Lord, and slain us without mercy. ⁴⁴ You have veiled yourself as with a cloud so that our prayers do not reach through. ⁴⁵ You have made us as refuse and garbage among the nations. ⁴⁶ All our enemies have spoken out against us. ⁴⁷ We are filled with fear, for we are trapped and desolate, destroyed.

^48-49 My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people. ⁵⁰ Oh, that the Lord might look down from heaven and respond to my cry! ⁵¹ My heart is breaking over what is happening to the young girls of Jerusalem.

⁵² My enemies, whom I have never harmed, chased me as though I were a bird. ⁵³ They threw me in a well and capped it with a rock. ⁵⁴ The water flowed above my head. I thought, This is the end! ⁵⁵ But I called upon your name, O Lord, from deep within the well, ⁵⁶ and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping! ⁵⁷ Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.

⁵⁸ O Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case! For you have redeemed my life. ⁵⁹ You have seen the wrong they did to me; be my Judge, to prove me right. ⁶⁰ You have seen the plots my foes have laid against me. ⁶¹ You have heard the vile names they have called me, ⁶² and all they say about me and their whispered plans. ⁶³ See how they laugh and sing with glee, preparing my doom.

⁶⁴ O Lord, repay them well for all the evil they have done. ⁶⁵ Harden their hearts and curse them, Lord. ⁶⁶ Go after them in fierce pursuit and wipe them off the earth, beneath the heavens of the Lord.