Old/New Testament
The Prophet’s Anguish
3 I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of His wrath.
2 He has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light.
3 Surely against me has He turned His hand
continually, the whole day long.
4 My flesh and my skin He has made waste away;
He has broken my bones;
5 He has besieged and enveloped me
with gall and travail.
6 He has set me in dark places,
like the dead of long ago.
7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8 Even when I cry for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10 He is to me a bear lying in wait,
a lion in hiding.
11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12 He has bent His bow
and set me as a target for the arrow.
13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver
to pierce my inward parts.
14 I have become the derision of all my people,
their mocking song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and covered me with ashes.
17 My soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.
18 So I say, “My strength and my hope
from the Lord have perished.”
19 Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the gall.
20 Surely my soul remembers
and is humbled within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed;
His compassions do not fail.
23 They are new 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 wait for Him,
to the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that a man should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord
will not cast off forever.
32 But though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion
according to the abundance of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict from His heart,
nor grieve the sons of men.
34 To crush underfoot
all the prisoners of the earth,
35 to turn aside the justice due a man
in the presence of the Most High,
36 to subvert a man in his cause,
the Lord does not approve.
37 Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad proceed?
39 Why should a living man complain,
a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways,
and return to the Lord!
41 Let us lift up our hearts and hands
to God in heaven:
42 We have transgressed and rebelled;
You have not pardoned.
43 You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us;
You have killed and not pitied.
44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud,
so that no prayer should pass through.
45 You have made us filthy refuse
in the midst of the peoples.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths
against us.
47 Panic and snare have come upon us,
desolation and destruction.
48 My eyes flow with rivers of tears
for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes flow and do not cease,
without respite,
50 until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees.
51 My eyes bring suffering to my soul
at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies chased me like a bird,
without cause.
53 They cut off my life in the pit
and cast stones on me.
54 Waters flowed over my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
55 I called on Your name, O Lord,
from the lowest pit.
56 You have heard my plea:
“Do not close Your ear to my cry for help!”
57 You drew near on the day I called on You,
and You said, “Do not fear!”
58 O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul;
You have redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, You have seen the wrong done to me;
judge my case.
60 You have seen all their vengeance,
all their schemes against me.
61 You have heard their reproach, O Lord,
all their schemes against me,
62 the lips of my enemies and
their devices against me all the day.
63 Look at their sitting down and their rising up;
I am their mocking song.
64 Render to them a recompense, O Lord,
according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them hardness of heart;
may Your curse be upon them!
66 In Your anger pursue and destroy them
from under Your heavens, O Lord!
The Punishment of Zion
4 How the gold has become dim!
How the most fine gold has changed!
The stones of the sanctuary lie scattered
at the head of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion,
comparable to fine gold,
how they are esteemed as earthen pots,
the work of a potter’s hands!
3 Even the jackals offer the breast;
they nurse their young,
yet the daughter of my people has become cruel,
like ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the infant cleaves
to the roof of his mouth for thirst;
the children beg for bread,
but no one divides it for them.
5 Those who once ate delicacies
are desolate in the streets;
those who were brought up in scarlet
embrace ash heaps.
6 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people
is greater than the sin of Sodom,
which was overthrown in a moment,
and no hands were wrung for her.
7 Her princes were purer than snow,
whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than rubies,
their appearance like sapphire.
8 Their form is blacker than coal;
they are not recognized in the streets;
their skin cleaves to their bones,
it has become as dry as wood.
9 Those killed by the sword
are better off than those who die of hunger,
for they pine away,
stricken for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of compassionate women
have boiled their own children;
they became their food in the destruction
of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord has fulfilled His fury,
He has poured out His fierce anger.
He kindled a fire in Zion,
and it has devoured its foundations.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world,
would not have believed
that the adversary and the enemy could enter
the gates of Jerusalem.
13 This was for the sins of her prophets
and the iniquities of her priests,
who poured out in her midst the blood of the righteous.
14 They wandered,
blind, in the streets;
they have defiled themselves with blood,
so that no one could touch their garments.
15 They cried out to them, “Depart! Unclean!
Depart, depart, do not touch us!”
Therefore they fled and wandered;
men among the nations said,
“They shall live with us no longer.”
16 The presence of the Lord scattered them;
He will regard them no more;
they do not respect the priests,
nor show favor to the elders.
17 Our eyes failed us,
watching vainly for help;
in our watchtowers we watched
for a nation that could not save us.
18 They tracked our steps
so that we could not walk in our streets.
Our end drew near; our days were numbered,
for our end had come.
19 Our pursuers were swifter
than the eagles of the skies.
They pursued us on the mountains;
they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our life, the anointed king of the Lord,
was captured in their traps,
of whom we said, “Under his shadow
we shall live among the nations.”
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
you who dwell in the land of Uz!
The cup shall also pass to you;
you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.
22 The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is accomplished;
He shall exile you no longer.
He shall punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
He will expose your sins!
A Prayer for Restoration
5 Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us;
look, and see our reproach!
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become orphans and fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
4 We must pay for the water we drink;
our wood is sold to us.
5 Our pursuers are at our necks;
we labor and have no rest.
6 We have given our hand to Egypt and to Assyria,
to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers sinned and are no more,
but we bear their iniquities.
8 Slaves rule over us;
there is no one to deliver us from their hand.
9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven,
because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes were hung up by their hands,
the faces of elders were not honored.
13 Young men ground at the millstones;
boys staggered under loads of wood.
14 The elders have left the city gate,
the young men stopped their music.
15 The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has turned into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head;
woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
for these things our eyes grow dim;
18 because of Mount Zion, which is desolate,
with foxes walking upon it.
19 You, O Lord, remain forever;
Your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do You forget us forever,
and forsake us for so long a time?
21 Restore us to Yourself, O Lord, that we may return!
Renew our days as of old,
22 unless You have utterly rejected us,
and are very angry with us.
Exhortation and Warning
19 Therefore, brothers, we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way that He has opened for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, 21 and since we have a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse them from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us firmly hold the profession of our faith without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to spur one another to love and to good works. 25 Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but let us exhort one another, especially as you see the Day approaching.
26 For if we willfully continue to sin after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who despised Moses’ law died without mercy in the presence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severe a punishment do you suppose he deserves, who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded the blood of the covenant that sanctified him to be a common thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine,” says the Lord, “I will repay.”[a] And again He says, “The Lord will judge His people.”[b] 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 Remember the former days, after you were enlightened, in which you endured a great struggle of afflictions. 33 In part you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and afflictions. And in part you became companions of those who were so abused. 34 For you had compassion on me in my chains and joyfully endured the confiscation of your property, knowing that you have in heaven a better and an enduring possession for yourselves. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which will be greatly rewarded.
36 For you need patience, so that after you have done the will of God, you will receive the promise. 37 For,
“In yet a little while,
He who is to come will come, and will not wait.
38 Now the just shall live by faith;
but if anyone draws back,
My soul shall have no pleasure in him.”[c]
39 But we are not of those who draw back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.