Lamentations 3:27–29

¹REMEMBER now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

⁷¹It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

¹²Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law;

⁵And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

⁶For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

⁷If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

⁸But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

⁹Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

¹⁰For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

¹¹Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

¹²Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

¹²So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

¹⁷I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.

¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

⁷I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

⁹I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

⁴Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.

¹²And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

⁶³That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.

¹⁷And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.

⁵I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

⁶Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

¹⁴Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?

⁹Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

¹⁸I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

¹⁹And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

¹³And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

¹⁹Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

³Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.