Lamentations 3:2-66

VIN(i) 2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light. 3 Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long. 4 He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones. 5 He has besieged and engulfed me with bitterness and hardship. 6 He makes me dwell in utter darkness like the eonian dead. 7 He has walled me in, so I can't escape; he has made my chains heavy. 8 Even when I send up a cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. 9 He has blocked my ways with dressed stones; he has made my paths crooked. 10 He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding. 11 he turns aside my ways and tears me; he sets me desolate; 12 With his bow bent, he made me the target for his arrows. 13 He poured into my reins the darts of his quiver. 14 I have become a laughingstock for all the people, their mocking song all day long. 15 VAU. He has filled me with bitterness, he has drenched me with gall. 16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel; he has pressed me down in the dust. 17 You have removed peace from my life; I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18 So I say, "My strength is gone as is my hope in the LORD." 19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. 20 My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to my mind; therefore I have hope: 22 ( η - [Cheth.]) Because of the LORD's gracious love we are not consumed, since his compassions never end. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I said to myself, "the LORD is my heritage. For this reason I will hope in him." 25 the LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26 Teth It is good to wait quietly in the salvation of the LORD. 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke while he is young. 28 Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him. 29 Let him put his mouth to the dust, there may yet be hope. 30 Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled with insults. 31 For LORD will not cast off forever. 32 though he causes grief, his compassion abounds according to his gracious love. 33 for he doth not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. 34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, 35 to turn aside the cause of man from before the Most High. 36 to wrong a man in his cause, -- will not the Lord see it? 37 Who can speak and it will happen if the Lord has not commanded it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that disaster and good will come? 39 MEM. Why should a living man complain, a man concerning his sin? 40 Let us search out our ways, and examine them well, and let us return unto the LORD; 41 Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven. 42 We have sinned and have rebelled; You have not forgiven. 43 You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you killed without sparing. 44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through. 45 You have reduced us to scum and garbage among the nations. 46 All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us. 47 On us are come terror and wrath, desolation and destruction. 48 Streams of tears run down from my eyes because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. 49 My eyes have poured down unceasingly without respite, 50 until the Lord look down from heaven and behold. 51 What I see grieves my soul because of all the young women of my city. 52 Those who are my enemies, without a cause, have chased me about like a bird. 53 They have cut off my life in the pit, and cast a stone at me. 54 Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off. 55 I called on your name, LORD, out of the depths of the pit. 56 You heard my voice don't close your ear to my sighs and cries. 57 You came near in the day I called You; you said, Do not fear! 58 O Lord, you have pleaded for my cause, you have redeemed my life. 59 You have seen, LORD, the wrong done to me; judge my case. 60 You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. 61 You have heard their insults, LORD, and all their plots against me. 62 The lips and meditation of my assailants are against me all day long. 63 Watch! Whether they sit down or stand up, they mock me with their songs. 64 Return to them what is deserved, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. 65 You will cover their hearts with your curse on them. 66 Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.