Lamentations 3

²He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness,

³Surely he turns his hand against me

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin old.

⁵He has built against me,

⁶He has made me dwell in dark places,

⁷He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out.

⁸Yes, when I cry, and call for help,

⁹He has walled up my ways with cut stone.

¹⁰He is to me as a bear lying in wait,

¹¹He has turned away my path,

¹²He has bent his bow,

¹³He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.

¹⁴I have become a derision to all my people,

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness.

¹⁶He has also broken my teeth with gravel.

¹⁷You have removed my soul far away from peace.

¹⁸I said, “My strength has perished,

¹⁹Remember my affliction and my misery,

²⁰My soul still remembers them,

²¹This I recall to my mind;

²²It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed,

²³They are new every morning.

²⁴“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul.

²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him,

²⁶It is good that a man should hope

²⁷It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

²⁸Let him sit alone and keep silence,

²⁹Let him put his mouth in the dust,

³⁰Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him.

³¹For the Lord will not cast off forever.

³²For though he causes grief,

³³For he does not afflict willingly,

³⁴To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,

³⁶to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.

³⁷Who is he who says, and it comes to pass,

³⁸Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

³⁹Why should a living man complain,

⁴⁰Let us search and try our ways,

⁴¹Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.

⁴²“We have transgressed and have rebelled.

⁴³“You have covered us with anger and pursued us.

⁴⁴You have covered yourself with a cloud,

⁴⁵You have made us an off-scouring and refuse

⁴⁶“All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

⁴⁷Terror and the pit have come on us,

⁴⁸My eye runs down with streams of water,

⁴⁹My eye pours down

⁵⁰until the LORD looks down,

⁵¹My eye affects my soul,

⁵²They have chased me relentlessly like a bird,

⁵³They have cut off my life in the dungeon,

⁵⁴Waters flowed over my head.

⁵⁵I called on your name, LORD,

⁵⁶You heard my voice:

⁵⁷You came near in the day that I called on you.

⁵⁸Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul.

⁵⁹LORD, you have seen my wrong.

⁶⁰You have seen all their vengeance

⁶¹You have heard their reproach, LORD,

⁶²the lips of those that rose up against me,

⁶³You see their sitting down and their rising up.

⁶⁴You will pay them back, LORD,

⁶⁵You will give them hardness of heart,

⁶⁶You will pursue them in anger,