Lamentations - Chapter 3 - American King James Version
- I AM the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
- He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
- Surely against me is he turned; he turns his hand against me all the day.
- My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.
- He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
- He has set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
- He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he has made my chain heavy.
- Also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer.
- He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he has made my paths crooked.
- He was to me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret 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 arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
- I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
- He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunken with wormwood.
- He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he has covered me with ashes.
- And you have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity.
- And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:
- Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
- This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
- It is of the LORD' mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
- They are new every morning: great is your faithfulness.
- The LORD is my portion, said my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
- The LORD is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
- It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
- It is good for a man that he bear the yoke of his youth.
- He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it on him.
- He puts his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
- He gives his cheek to him that smites him: he is filled full with reproach.
- For the LORD will not cast off for ever:
- But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
- For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
- To crush under his feet 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, the LORD approves not.
- Who is he that said, and it comes to pass, when the Lord commands it not?
- Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not 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 the LORD.
- Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
- We have transgressed and have rebelled: you have not pardoned.
- You have covered with anger, and persecuted us: you have slain, you have not pitied.
- You have covered yourself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
- You have made us as the offscouring and refuse in the middle of the people.
- All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
- Fear and a snare is come on us, desolation and destruction.
- My eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- My eye trickles down, and ceases not, without any intermission.
- Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.
- My eye affects my heart because of all the daughters of my city.
- My enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
- They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone on me.
- Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.
- I called on your name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.
- You have heard my voice: hide not your ear at my breathing, at my cry.
- You drew near in the day that I called on you: you said, Fear not.
- O LORD, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.
- O LORD, you have seen my wrong: judge you my cause.
- You have seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
- You have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;
- The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
- Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their music.
- Render to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
- Give them sorrow of heart, your curse to them.
- Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.