Lamentations 3:16–22

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,

¹¹We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

³⁰And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land;

¹⁷Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

¹⁰For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.

¹⁹Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!

⁵For thus saith the Lord, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, even lovingkindness and mercies.

¹⁴¶ Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.

¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.

¹⁶And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;

¹⁷Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

¹⁸Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!

⁷O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

¹⁶For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

¹⁵⁵Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.

¹⁰For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour.

¹⁵And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

¹AND David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand.

¹¹¶ Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

¹¹What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

¹¹I said in my haste, All men are liars.

²²For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.

¹⁵He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.

⁵He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.

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.

⁷O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

³²Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day.

¹LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions:

⁴⁷Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?

⁵⁰Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people;

¹¹Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

⁵Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

⁶O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

⁶Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.

⁵Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

⁸The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous:

²⁵For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.

³For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

⁷Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.

⁷Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?

⁸Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?

⁹Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

¹⁰And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

¹¹I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

²⁴The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

²⁵The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

²⁶It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

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

²⁸He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.

²⁹He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

⁸¹My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word.

¹⁵But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

⁵⁰And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

³¹Nevertheless for thy great mercies’ sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.

¹⁸Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

¹⁹He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

⁶For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

³⁸But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath.

⁴⁵And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

⁸Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?

⁸But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

⁹But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

⁸And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.

⁹For we were bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.

¹³And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this;

¹⁴Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?

¹⁵O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this.

²¹Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.

²²Nevertheless I withdrew mine hand, and wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth.

¹³But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.

¹⁴But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out.