Lamentations 3:2-66

ECB(i) 2 he drove me and walked me into darkness without light: 3 surely he turns against me - turns his hand all the day: 4 he wears out my flesh and my skin; he breaks my bones; 5 he builds against me and surrounds me with rosh and travail; 6 he sets me in dark places as the dead of old; 7 he walls me in so I cannot get out; he weights my copper: 8 also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer; 9 he walls in my ways with hewn; he bends my paths: 10 he is to me as a bear lurking - a lion in coverts: 11 he turns aside my ways and tears me; he sets me desolate; 12 he bends his bow and stations me as a target for the arrow; 13 he has the sons of his quiver enter my reins. 14 I am a ridicule to all my people; and their strumming all the day: 15 he satiates me with bitternesses; he satiates me with wormwood: 16 and he crushes my teeth with gravel; he covers me with ashes. 17 And you remove my soul far from shalom; I forget the good. 18 And I say, My perpetuity and my hope from Yah Veh destructs; 19 remember my humiliation and my persecution - the wormwood and the rosh. 20 In remembering, my soul remembers and sinks within me. 21 I turn this to my heart; so I await. 22 The mercies of Yah Veh! We are not consumed, because his tender mercies never finish: 23 new by mornings; how great your trustworthiness. 24 Yah Veh is my allotment, says my soul; so I await him. 25 Yah Veh is good to them who await him - to the soul who seeks him: 26 - good to await - to silently await the salvation of Yah Veh. 27 - good for the mighty to bear the yoke of his youth. 28 He settles alone and hushes because he bears it on himself: 29 he gives his mouth in the dust; if so be there is hope: 30 he gives his cheek to his smiter; he satiates with reproach. 31 For Adonay casts not off eternally; 32 for though he grieves you, yet he mercies according to the abundance of his mercies: 33 for he neither humbles from his heart nor grieves the sons of men. 34 To crush all the bound of the earth under his feet, 35 to pervert the judgment of the mighty in front of the face of Elyon, 36 to twist a man in his defence, Adonay sees not. 37 Who is this - who says, and it becomes and Adonay commands not? 38 From the mouth of Elyon proceeds not evil and good? 39 Why sighs any living human - the mighty for his sins? 40 We search our ways and probe and return to Yah Veh; 41 we lift our heart with palms to El in the heavens; 42 we - we transgress and rebel: you - you forgive not; 43 you cover with wrath and pursue us; you slaughter; you spare not: 44 you cover with a cloud so our prayer passes not through: 45 you set us the offscouring and refuse midst the people: 46 all our enemies gasp their mouths against us; 47 dread and a pit comes on us - desolation and breech. 48 My eye cascades with rivulets of water for the breech of the daughter of my people: 49 my eye flows and ceases not - without any relaxation. 50 Until Yah Veh looks down and sees from the heavens, 51 my eye exploits my soul because of all the daughters of my city. 52 In hunting, my enemies hunt me as a bird - gratuitously; 53 they exterminate my life in the well and hand toss a stone on me: 54 waters overflow my head; I say, I am cut off. 55 I call on your name, O Yah Veh, from the nether well. 56 You hear my voice; conceal not your ear at my respiration; at my cry: 57 you drew near in the day I called on you; you said, Awe not. 58 O Adonay, you defended the defences of my soul; you redeemed my life: 59 O Yah Veh, you saw my writhing; judge my judgment. 60 You see all their vengeance and all their machinations against me. 61 You hear their reproach, O Yah Veh, and all their machinations against me; 62 the lips of those who rise against me and their meditation against me all the day. 63 Look at their sitting and their rising; I am their satire. 64 Return their dealings to them, O Yah Veh, according to the work of their hands: 65 give them a covered heart - your curse to them: 66 persecute and desolate them in wrath from under the heavens of Yah Veh.