Lamentations 3

God Locked Me Up in Deep Darkness

1-3 I'm the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of God's anger. He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness. Yes, he's given me the back of his hand over and over and over again.

4-6 He turned me into a scarecrow of skin and bones, then broke the bones. He hemmed me in, ganged up on me, poured on the trouble and hard times. He locked me up in deep darkness, like a corpse nailed inside a coffin.

7-9 He shuts me in so I'll never get out, manacles my hands, shackles my feet. Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key. He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He's got me cornered.

10-12 He's a prowling bear tracking me down, a lion in hiding ready to pounce. He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces. When he finished, there was nothing left of me. He took out his bow and arrows and used me for target practice.

13-15 He shot me in the stomach with arrows from his quiver. Everyone took me for a joke, made me the butt of their mocking ballads. He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat, bloated me with vile drinks.

16-18 He ground my face into the gravel. He pounded me into the mud. I gave up on life altogether. I've forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause."

It's a Good Thing to Hope for Help from God

19-21 I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

22-24 God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left.

25-27 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times.

28-30 When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst.

31-33 Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way:

34-36 Stomping down hard on luckless prisoners, Refusing justice to victims in the court of High God, Tampering with evidence— the Master does not approve of such things.

God Speaks Both Good Things and Hard Things into Being

37-39 Who do you think "spoke and it happened"? It's the Master who gives such orders. Doesn't the High God speak everything, good things and hard things alike, into being? And why would anyone gifted with life complain when punished for sin?

40-42 Let's take a good look at the way we're living and reorder our lives under God. Let's lift our hearts and hands at one and the same time, praying to God in heaven: "We've been contrary and willful, and you haven't forgiven.

43-45 "You lost your temper with us, holding nothing back. You chased us and cut us down without mercy. You wrapped yourself in thick blankets of clouds so no prayers could get through. You treated us like dirty dishwater, threw us out in the backyard of the nations.

46-48 "Our enemies shout abuse, their mouths full of derision, spitting invective. We've been to hell and back. We've nowhere to turn, nowhere to go. Rivers of tears pour from my eyes at the smashup of my dear people.

49-51 "The tears stream from my eyes, an artesian well of tears, Until you, God, look down from on high, look and see my tears. When I see what's happened to the young women in the city, the pain breaks my heart.

52-54 "Enemies with no reason to be enemies hunted me down like a bird. They threw me into a pit, then pelted me with stones. Then the rains came and filled the pit. The water rose over my head. I said, 'It's all over.'

55-57 "I called out your name, O God, called from the bottom of the pit. You listened when I called out, 'Don't shut your ears! Get me out of here! Save me!' You came close when I called out. You said, 'It's going to be all right.'

58-60 "You took my side, Master; you brought me back alive! God, you saw the wrongs heaped on me. Give me my day in court! Yes, you saw their mean-minded schemes, their plots to destroy me.

61-63 "You heard, God, their vicious gossip, their behind-my-back plots to ruin me. They never quit, these enemies of mine, dreaming up mischief, hatching out malice, day after day after day. Sitting down or standing up—just look at them!— they mock me with vulgar doggerel.

64-66 "Make them pay for what they've done, God. Give them their just deserts. Break their miserable hearts! Damn their eyes! Get good and angry. Hunt them down. Make a total demolition here under your heaven!"

Lamentations 3

Jeremiah Shares Israel's Affliction

1 I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.

2 He has driven me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.

3 Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.

4 He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away,
He has broken my bones.

5 He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.

6 In dark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.

7 He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my chain heavy.

8 Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.

9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.

10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.

11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.

12 He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.

13 He made the arrows of His quiver
To enter into my inward parts.

14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.

15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.

16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.

17 My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

18 So I say, "My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the LORD."

Hope of Relief in God's Mercy

19 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.

20 Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.

21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

22 The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.

23  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I have hope in Him."

25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

26  It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD.

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

28 Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.

29 Let him put his mouth in the dust,
Perhaps there is hope.

30 Let him give his cheek to the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.

31 For the Lord will not reject forever,

32 For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.

33 For He does not afflict willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.

34 To crush under His feet
All the prisoners of the land,

35 To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,

36 To defraud a man in his lawsuit-
Of these things the Lord does not approve.

37 Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?

38  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?

39 Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?

40 Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the LORD.

41 We lift up our heart and hands
Toward God in heaven;

42 We have transgressed and rebelled,
You have not pardoned.

43 You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain and have not spared.

44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud
So that no prayer can pass through.

45  You have made us mere offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.

46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

47 Panic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;

48 My eyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

49 My eyes pour down unceasingly,
Without stopping,

50 Until the LORD looks down
And sees from heaven.

51 My eyes bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.

52 My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird;

53 They have silenced me in the pit
And have placed a stone on me.

54 Waters flowed over my head;
I said, "I am cut off!"

55 I called on Your name, O LORD,
Out of the lowest pit.

56 You have heard my voice,
"Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help."

57 You drew near when I called on You;
You said, "Do not fear!"

58 O Lord, You have pleaded my soul's cause;
You have redeemed my life.

59 O LORD, You have seen my oppression;
Judge my case.

60 You have seen all their vengeance,
All their schemes against me.

61 You have heard their reproach, O LORD,
All their schemes against me.

62 The lips of my assailants and their whispering
Are against me all day long.

63 Look on their sitting and their rising;
I am their mocking song.

64 You will recompense them, O LORD,
According to the work of their hands.

65 You will give them hardness of heart,
Your curse will be on them.

66 You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the heavens of the LORD!