Lamentations 3:14–16

⁷¶ O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.

⁶³Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

⁶But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

⁷All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

⁹For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.

¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.

¹¹Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;

¹²And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:

¹³Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

²⁷For was not Israel a derision unto thee? was he found among thieves? for since thou spakest of him, thou skippedst for joy.

¹BUT now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

²Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?

³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

⁵They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)

⁶To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

⁸They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

⁹And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

³⁹¶ And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

⁴⁰And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

⁴¹Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,

⁴²He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

⁴³He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

⁴⁴The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

²And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?

³Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.

⁴Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity:

³Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

³For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

¹⁵But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:

¹⁶With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.

¹³Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

¹¹I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.

¹²They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.

⁴We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

¹⁵Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

¹⁷¶ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.

¹⁸There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.

¹⁹These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?

²⁰Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God.

²¹¶ Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:

²²Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:

¹⁵Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

¹⁵¶ For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.

¹⁶And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

¹⁷Then took I the cup at the Lord’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the Lord had sent me:

¹⁸To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;

²⁷Therefore thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.

¹⁸He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.

¹⁹Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

³Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.

²⁰And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

¹⁷Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.

²⁶¶ O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.

⁷Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.

⁶Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord.

⁸And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.

¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

⁶For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

¹¹If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

⁹Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

⁹For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,