Lamentations 3

The Voice

3 Afflicted, I have seen and know what it’s like
    to feel the rod of God’s anger:
² An absence of light and only darkness.
    Darkness—that’s where God has driven me.
³ Against me and me alone, over and over,
    God raises His hand incessantly.

⁴ Bones are broken, skin rubbed off, and my flesh wasted;
    this is God’s doing:
⁵ Besieged in hardship,
    wrapped in a husk of bitter poison and trouble;
⁶ Brought to darkness like those dead and decaying,
    and left there alone to live.

⁷ Cut off from every avenue of escape, God has fenced me in
    and tied me up with heavy chains.
⁸ Crying and carrying on do me no good;
    God shuts out my prayer.
⁹ Closed in and blocked by walls of cut stone,
    what paths I have left, He has twisted and confused my steps.

¹⁰ Dangerous as a stalking lion or a lurking bear,
    God lies in wait for me.
¹¹ Dragging me off the path and tearing me up,
    He has left me desolate.
¹² Drawing back His bow, God aims
    straight at me with His own arrow.

¹³ Ever true arrows, ready in His quiver,
    now sink into my gut.
¹⁴ Echoing taunts ring ’round me from the mouths of my own people,
    laughing and joking about me all day long.
¹⁵ Enough! He has filled me with bitterness,
    saturated me with gall.

¹⁶ For He crushes my teeth with a mouth filled with gravel;
    He humiliates me, trampling me in ashes.
¹⁷ Fragmented, my self knows no peace.
    I cannot remember what it’s like to be happy.
¹⁸ “Failed,” I say to myself. “My hope fails
    in the face of what the Eternal One has done.”

¹⁹ Grievous thoughts of affliction and wandering plagued my mind—
    great bitterness and gall.
²⁰ Grieving, my soul thinks back;
    these thoughts cripple, and I sink down.
²¹ Gaining hope,
    I remember and wait for this thought:

²² How enduring is God’s loyal love;
    the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.
²³ Here they are, every morning, new!
    Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.
²⁴ Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need.
    My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”

²⁵ It is good. The Eternal One is good to those who expect Him,
    to those who seek Him wholeheartedly.
²⁶ It is good to wait quietly
    for the Eternal to make things right again.
²⁷ It is good to have to deal
    with restraint and burdens when young.

²⁸ Just leave in peace the one who waits in silence,
    patiently bearing the burden of God;
²⁹ Just don’t interfere if he falls, gape-mouthed in the dust.
    There may well be hope yet.
³⁰ Just let him offer his cheek when struck.
    Let him be the butt of jokes.

³¹ Kept in God’s care:
    the Lord won’t reject him forever.
³² Kindness prevails: Even though God torments sometimes,
    the greatness of God’s loyal love wins out.
³³ Keeping us down: it is not the desire or way of God’s heart
    to hurt and grieve the children of men.

³⁴ Left as captives of the land
    to be stomped on and crushed,
³⁵ Legal action and human rights denied
    in the very presence of our exalted God,
³⁶ Lord, surely You do not approve it—they deny
    one person’s rights and a fair trial.

³⁷ Matters not who says a thing will or won’t happen
    unless the Lord determines that it should.
³⁸ Most High God must proclaim it so—
    for both good and bad, joy and sorrow come from Him, so
³⁹ Mind your complaint. Why should a person fuss
    when faced with the consequences of his own wrongdoing?

⁴⁰ Now let’s search out our thoughts and ways
    and return to the Eternal.
⁴¹ Now let’s lift up to God in heaven
    our hearts along with our hands in praise and supplication.
⁴² Now, let us admit that we persisted in wrong
    and You, God, were right to deny us forgiveness.

⁴³ You have wrapped Yourself in anger.
    You hunted us down and became our merciless killer.
⁴⁴ Our prayers couldn’t penetrate the cloud
    You then wrapped around Yourself.
⁴⁵ Oh, we are trash: You’ve made us so
    in the eyes of all people.

⁴⁶ Putting us down, our enemies scoff.
    They gape and gawk at us.
⁴⁷ Panic and pitfalls are all around us,
    nothing but breakdown and decay.
⁴⁸ Pouring out from my eyes are tears like rivers
    over the destruction of my people, daughter Zion.

⁴⁹ Quenched? It can’t be quenched,
    this sorrow in my eyes,
⁵⁰ Quelled only by knowing that
    the Eternal looks down from heaven and sees.
⁵¹ Quickly I recoil from what my eyes see; I am choked with grief
    at the fate of the young women of my city.

⁵² Running me down, my enemies for no reason
    hunt me, a tiny bird.
⁵³ Rattling my bones with stones thrown down on my head,
    having flung me mercilessly in a pit.
⁵⁴ ’Round about me and over me, watery darkness closes in.
    I cry out, “I’m drowning! All is lost, lost.”

⁵⁵ Saying Your name, Eternal One, I called to You
    from the darkness of this pit.
⁵⁶ Surely You’ve heard me say,
    “Don’t be deaf to my call; bring me relief!”
⁵⁷ So close when I’ve called out in my distress,
    You’ve whispered in my ear, “Do not be afraid.”

⁵⁸ Taking up my cause, Lord, You’ve been my champion.
    You’ve paid the price; You saved my life.
⁵⁹ Terrible things have been done to me. You’ve seen it, Eternal One.
    Judge my case with justice.
⁶⁰ Their abuses against me are not hidden from You.
    You’ve seen all the awful things my enemies determine to do to me.

⁶¹ Ugly words and uglier plans they have for me—
    You’ve heard it all, Eternal One.
⁶² Under their breath, my adversaries whispering about me,
    devising nasty schemes all the time.
⁶³ Unkind jokes at my expense,
    whether they’re sitting around or going to and fro.

⁶⁴ Villains You will return to their recompense,
    Eternal One, according to their deeds.
⁶⁵ Visit them with anguish and an insensitivity to Your words.
    Make Your curse fall hard on them.
⁶⁶ Vehemently pummel them. Chase them down, obliterate them
    from below the heavens of the Eternal, from the earth itself.