ESV - Lamentations Chapter 3 to 5

3 Great Is Your Faithfulness

3:1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; ²he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; ³surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; ⁵he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; ⁶he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; ⁸though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; ⁹he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; ¹¹he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; ¹²he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.

¹³He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; ¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. ¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; ¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness[1] is; ¹⁸so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”

¹⁹Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! ²⁰My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. ²¹But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[2] his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. ²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. ²⁷It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

²⁸Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; ²⁹let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; ³⁰let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.

³¹For the Lord will not cast off forever, ³²but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; ³³for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

³⁴To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, ³⁵to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, ³⁶to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.

³⁷Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? ³⁸Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? ³⁹Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?

⁴⁰Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord! ⁴¹Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: ⁴²“We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

⁴³“You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; ⁴⁴you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. ⁴⁵You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.

⁴⁶“All our enemies open their mouths against us; ⁴⁷panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction; ⁴⁸my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, ⁵⁰until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees; ⁵¹my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.

⁵²“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; ⁵³they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; ⁵⁴water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’

⁵⁵“I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; ⁵⁶you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ ⁵⁷You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’

⁵⁸“You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life. ⁵⁹You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause. ⁶⁰You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.

⁶¹“You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me. ⁶²The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long. ⁶³Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.

⁶⁴“You will repay them,[3] O Lord, according to the work of their hands. ⁶⁵You will give them[4] dullness of heart; your curse will be[5] on them. ⁶⁶You will pursue them[6] in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord.”[7]

[1] Hebrew good [2] Syriac, Targum; Hebrew Because of the steadfast love of the Lord, we are not cut off [3] Or Repay them [4] Or Give them [5] Or Place your curse [6] Or Pursue them [7] Syriac (compare Septuagint, Vulgate); Hebrew the heavens of the Lord

4 The Holy Stones Lie Scattered

4:1 How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street.

²The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands!

³Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.

⁵Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.

⁶For the chastisement[8] of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment[9] of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.^[10]

⁷Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, the beauty of their form[11] was like sapphire.^[12]

⁸Now their face is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood.

⁹Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field.

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹¹The Lord gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations.

¹²The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³This was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous.

¹⁴They wandered, blind, through the streets; they were so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments.

¹⁵“Away! Unclean!” people cried at them. “Away! Away! Do not touch!” So they became fugitives and wanderers; people said among the nations, “They shall stay with us no longer.”

¹⁶The Lord himself[13] has scattered them; he will regard them no more; no honor was shown to the priests, no favor to the elders.

¹⁷Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save.

¹⁸They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near; our days were numbered, for our end had come.

¹⁹Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles in the heavens; they chased us on the mountains; they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

²⁰The breath of our nostrils, the Lord’s anointed, was captured in their pits, of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”

²¹Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.

²²The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is accomplished; he will keep you in exile no longer;^[14]but your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will punish; he will uncover your sins.

[8] Or iniquity [9] Or sin [10] The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain [11] The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain [12] Hebrew lapis lazuli [13] Hebrew The face of the Lord [14] Or he will not exile you again

5 Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord

5:1 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! ²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. ³We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows. ⁴We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought. ⁵Our pursuers are at our necks;[15] we are weary; we are given no rest. ⁶We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough. ⁷Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities. ⁸Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand. ⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness. ¹⁰Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine. ¹¹Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah. ¹²Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders. ¹³Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood. ¹⁴The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music. ¹⁵The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning. ¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned! ¹⁷For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim, ¹⁸for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it. ¹⁹But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. ²⁰Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? ²¹Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old— ²²unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

[15] Symmachus With a yoke on our necks