Lamentations - Chapter 3 - A Conservative Version
- I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
- He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
- Surely he turns his hand against me, again and again all the day.
- He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.
- He has built against me, and encompassed me with gall and travail.
- He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those who have long been dead.
- He has walled me around, that I cannot go forth. He has made my chain heavy.
- Yea, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
- He has walled up my ways with hewn stone. He has made my paths crooked.
- He is to me as a bear laying in wait, as a lion in concealed places.
- He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
- He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
- He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my reins.
- I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.
- He has filled me with bitterness. He has sated me with wormwood.
- He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones. He has covered me with ashes.
- And thou have removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity.
- And I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from LORD.
- Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- My soul still has them in remembrance, and is bowed down within me.
- This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope:
- [It is of] LORD's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions do not fail.
- They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.
- LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.
- LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
- It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of LORD.
- It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
- Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it upon him.
- Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.
- Let him give his cheek to him who smites him. Let him be filled full with reproach.
- For LORD will not cast off forever.
- For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
- For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the sons of men.
- To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
- to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
- to subvert a man in his cause, LORD does not approve.
- Who is he that says, and it comes to pass, when LORD does not command it?
- Out of the mouth of the Most High does there not come evil and good.
- Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
- Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to LORD.
- Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
- We have transgressed and have rebelled. Thou have not pardoned.
- Thou have covered with anger and pursued us. Thou have slain; thou have not pitied.
- Thou have covered thyself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
- Thou have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.
- All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
- Fear and the pit have come upon us, devastation and destruction.
- My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- My eye pours down, and does not cease, without any intermission,
- till LORD looks down, and beholds from heaven.
- My eye stirs my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
- They have chased me grievously like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
- They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone upon me.
- Waters flowed over my head. I said, I am cut off.
- I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.
- Thou heard my voice. Hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
- Thou drew near in the day that I called upon thee. Thou said, Fear not.
- O LORD, thou have pleaded the causes of my soul. Thou have redeemed my life.
- O LORD, thou have seen my wrong. Judge thou my cause.
- Thou have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me.
- Thou have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their devices against me,
- the lips of those who rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
- Behold thou their sitting down, and their rising up. I am their song.
- Thou will render to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
- Thou will give them hardness of heart, thy curse to them.
- Thou will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of LORD.