Lamentations 3 / 5
- 1
(Great Is Your Faithfulness)
I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of his wrath;
- 2
he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
- 3
surely against me he turns his hand
again and again the whole day long.
- 4
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;
- 5
he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
- 6
he has made me dwell in darkness
like the dead of long ago.
- 7
He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has made my chains heavy;
- 8
though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
- 9
he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
he has made my paths crooked.
- 10
He is a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding;
- 11
he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;
he has made me desolate;
- 12
he bent his bow and set me
as a target for his arrow.
- 13
He drove into my kidneys
the arrows of his quiver;
- 14
I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,
the object of their taunts all day long.
- 15
He has filled me with bitterness;
he has sated me with wormwood.
- 16
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
- 17
my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
- 18
so I say, "My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord."
- 19
Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
- 20
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
- 21
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
- 22
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
- 23
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
- 24
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him."
- 25
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
- 26
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
- 27
It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
- 28
Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
- 29
let him put his mouth in the dust--
there may yet be hope;
- 30
let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
- 31
For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
- 32
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
- 33
for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve the children of men.
- 34
To crush underfoot
all the prisoners of the earth,
- 35
to deny a man justice
in the presence of the Most High,
- 36
to subvert a man in his lawsuit,
the Lord does not approve.
- 37
Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
- 38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad come?
- 39
Why should a living man complain,
a man, about the punishment of his sins?
- 40
Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord!
- 41
Let 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;
- 44
you have wrapped yourself with a cloud
so that no prayer can pass through.
- 45
You have made us scum and garbage
among the peoples.
- 46
"All our enemies
open their mouths against us;
- 47
panic and pitfall have come upon us,
devastation and destruction;
- 48
my 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,
- 50
until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees;
- 51
my 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;
- 53
they flung me alive into the pit
and cast stones on me;
- 54
water closed over my head;
I said, 'I am lost.'
- 55
"I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
- 56
you heard my plea, 'Do not close
your ear to my cry for help!'
- 57
You 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.
- 59
You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord;
judge my cause.
- 60
You have seen all their vengeance,
all their plots against me.
- 61
"You have heard their taunts, O Lord,
all their plots against me.
- 62
The lips and thoughts of my assailants
are against me all the day long.
- 63
Behold their sitting and their rising;
I am the object of their taunts.
- 64
"You will repay them, O Lord,
according to the work of their hands.
- 65
You will give them dullness of heart;
your curse will beOr place your curse on them.
- 66
You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
from under your heavens, O Lord."Syriac (compare Septuagint, Vulgate); Hebrew the heavens of the Lord