Lamentations 3-5

Lamentations 3

¹I am the man who has seen trouble by the rod of his wrath.

²By him I have been made to go in the dark where there is no light.

³Truly against me his hand has been turned again and again all the day.

⁴My flesh and my skin have been used up by him and my bones broken.

⁵He has put up a wall against me, shutting me in with bitter sorrow.

⁶He has kept me in dark places, like those who have been long dead.

⁷He has put a wall round me, so that I am not able to go out; he has made great the weight of my chain.

⁸Even when I send up a cry for help, he keeps my prayer shut out.

⁹He has put up a wall of cut stones about my ways, he has made my roads twisted.

¹⁰He is like a bear waiting for me, like a lion in secret places.

¹¹By him my ways have been turned on one side and I have been pulled in bits; he has made me waste.

¹²With his bow bent, he has made me the mark for his arrows.

¹³He has let loose his arrows into the inmost parts of my body.

¹⁴I have become the sport of all the peoples; I am their song all the day.

¹⁵He has made my life nothing but pain, he has given me the bitter root in full measure.

¹⁶By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.

¹⁷My soul is sent far away from peace, I have no more memory of good.

¹⁸And I said, My strength is cut off, and my hope from the Lord.

¹⁹Keep in mind my trouble and my wandering, the bitter root and the poison.

²⁰My soul still keeps the memory of them; and is bent down in me.

²¹This I keep in mind, and because of this I have hope.

²²It is through the Lord's love that we have not come to destruction, because his mercies have no limit.

²³They are new every morning; great is your good faith.

²⁴I said to myself, The Lord is my heritage; and because of this I will have hope in him.

²⁵The Lord is good to those who are waiting for him, to the soul which is looking for him.

²⁶It is good to go on hoping and quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord.

²⁷It is good for a man to undergo the yoke when he is young.

²⁸Let him be seated by himself, saying nothing, because he has put it on him.

²⁹Let him put his mouth in the dust, if by chance there may be hope.

³⁰Let his face be turned to him who gives him blows; let him be full of shame.

³¹For the Lord does not give a man up for ever.

³²For though he sends grief, still he will have pity in the full measure of his love.

³³For he has no pleasure in troubling and causing grief to the children of men.

³⁴In a man's crushing under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵In his turning away the right of a man before the face of the Most High.

³⁶In his doing wrong to a man in his cause, the Lord has no pleasure.

³⁷Who is able to say a thing, and give effect to it, if it has not been ordered by the Lord?

³⁸Do not evil and good come from the mouth of the Most High?

³⁹What protest may a living man make, even a man about the punishment of his sin?

⁴⁰Let us make search and put our ways to the test, turning again to the Lord;

⁴¹Lifting up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens.

⁴²We have done wrong and gone against your law; we have not had your forgiveness.

⁴³Covering yourself with wrath you have gone after us, cutting us off without pity;

⁴⁴Covering yourself with a cloud, so that prayer may not get through.

⁴⁵You have made us like waste and that for which there is no use, among the peoples.

⁴⁶The mouths of all our haters are open wide against us.

⁴⁷Fear and deep waters have come on us, wasting and destruction.

⁴⁸Rivers of water are running down from my eyes, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹My eyes are streaming without stopping, they have no rest,

⁵⁰Till the Lord's eye is turned on me, till he sees my trouble from heaven.

⁵¹The Lord is unkind to my soul, more than all the daughters of my town.

⁵²They who are against me without cause have gone hard after me as if I was a bird;

⁵³They have put an end to my life in the prison, stoning me with stones.

⁵⁴Waters were flowing over my head; I said, I am cut off.

⁵⁵I was making prayer to your name, O Lord, out of the lowest prison.

⁵⁶My voice came to you; let not your ear be shut to my breathing, to my cry.

⁵⁷You came near in the day when I made my prayer to you: you said, Have no fear.

⁵⁸O Lord, you have taken up the cause of my soul, you have made my life safe.

⁵⁹O Lord, you have seen my wrong; be judge in my cause.

⁶⁰You have seen all the evil rewards they have sent on me, and all their designs against me.

⁶¹Their bitter words have come to your ears, O Lord, and all their designs against me;

⁶²The lips of those who came up against me, and their thoughts against me all the day.

⁶³Take note of them when they are seated, and when they get up; I am their song.

⁶⁴You will give them their reward, O Lord, answering to the work of their hands.

⁶⁵You will let their hearts be covered over with your curse on them.

⁶⁶You will go after them in wrath, and put an end to them from under the heavens of the Lord.

Lamentations 4

¹How dark has the gold become! how changed the best gold! the stones of the holy place are dropping out at the top of every street.

²The valued sons of Zion, whose price was the best gold, are looked on as vessels of earth, the work of the hands of the potter!

³Even the beasts of the waste land have full breasts, they give milk to their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the waste land.

⁴The tongue of the child at the breast is fixed to the roof of his mouth for need of drink: the young children are crying out for bread, and no man gives it to them.

⁵Those who were used to feasting on delicate food are wasted in the streets: those who as children were dressed in purple are stretched out on the dust.

⁶For the punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overturned suddenly without any hand falling on her.

⁷Her holy ones were cleaner than snow, they were whiter than milk, their bodies were redder than corals, their form was as the sapphire:

⁸Their face is blacker than night; in the streets no one has knowledge of them: their skin is hanging on their bones, they are dry, they have become like wood.

⁹Those who have been put to the sword are better off than those whose death is caused by need of food; for these come to death slowly, burned up like the fruit of the field.

¹⁰The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹¹The Lord has given full effect to his passion, he has let loose his burning wrath; he has made a fire in Zion, causing the destruction of its bases.

¹²To the kings of the earth and to all the people of the world it did not seem possible that the attackers and the haters would go into the doors of Jerusalem.

¹³It is because of the sins of her prophets and the evil-doing of her priests, by whom the blood of the upright has been drained out in her.

¹⁴They are wandering like blind men in the streets, they are made unclean with blood, so that their robes may not be touched by men.

¹⁵Away! unclean! they were crying out to them, Away! away! let there be no touching: when they went away in flight and wandering, men said among the nations, There is no further resting-place for them.

¹⁶The face of the Lord has sent them in all directions; he will no longer take care of them: they had no respect for the priests, they gave no honour to the old men.

¹⁷Our eyes are still wasting away in looking for our false help: we have been watching for a nation unable to give salvation.

¹⁸They go after our steps so that we may not go in our streets: our end is near, our days are numbered; for our end has come.

¹⁹Those who went after us were quicker than the eagles of the heaven, driving us before them on the mountains, waiting secretly for us in the waste land.

²⁰Our breath of life, he on whom the holy oil was put, was taken in their holes; of whom we said, Under his shade we will be living among the nations.

²¹Have joy and be glad, O daughter of Edom, living in the land of Uz: the cup will be given to you in your turn, and you will be overcome with wine and your shame will be seen.

²²The punishment of your evil-doing is complete, O daughter of Zion; never again will he take you away as a prisoner: he will give you the reward of your evil-doing, O daughter of Edom; he will let your sin be uncovered.

Lamentations 5

¹Keep in mind, O Lord, what has come to us: take note and see our shame.

²Our heritage is given up to men of strange lands, our houses to those who are not our countrymen.

³We are children without fathers, our mothers are like widows.

⁴We give money for a drink of water, we get our wood for a price.

⁵Our attackers are on our necks: overcome with weariness, we have no rest.

⁶We have given our hands to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians so that we might have enough bread.

⁷Our fathers were sinners and are dead; and the weight of their evil-doing is on us.

⁸Servants are ruling over us, and there is no one to make us free from their hands.

⁹We put our lives in danger to get our bread, because of the sword of the waste land.

¹⁰Our skin is heated like an oven because of our burning heat from need of food.

¹¹They took by force the women in Zion, the virgins in the towns of Judah.

¹²Their hands put princes to death by hanging: the faces of old men were not honoured.

¹³The young men were crushing the grain, and the boys were falling under the wood.

¹⁴The old men are no longer seated in the doorway, and the music of the young men has come to an end.

¹⁵The joy of our hearts is ended; our dancing is changed into sorrow.

¹⁶The crown has been taken from our head: sorrow is ours, for we are sinners.

¹⁷Because of this our hearts are feeble; for these things our eyes are dark;

¹⁸Because of the mountain of Zion which is a waste; jackals go over it.

¹⁹You, O Lord, are seated as King for ever; the seat of your power is eternal.

²⁰Why have we gone from your memory for ever? why have you been turned away from us for so long?

²¹Make us come back to you, O Lord, and let us be turned; make our days new again as in the past.

²²But you have quite given us up; you are full of wrath against us.